“Why do you have that?”
Too late, Tom conceals the pinafore behind his back. His rehearsed response- “Nellie stole my bread at breakfast, so I ought to get something of hers”- dies on his tongue, as Mrs. Cole’s eyes snap colder than he’s ever seen them.
“Because,” he says, and there is nothing beyond that.
His eyes prickle when she rips it out of his hands, motions harsher than her usual. He means to explain that it ought to belong to him, the prettiest thing in this miserable place, with ruffles on the sleeves and a ribbon on the back. Nellie Spragg’s got a nose like a pig and grime under her nails, and she rips every bit of clothing she gets. She doesn’t deserve such a lovely thing, only owned once before by the child of a rich and elegant donor. Why should it be hers, when he’d take care of it better than she ever could?
For thieving he is sent off to bed without supper, which he expects. He fails to predict the doctor’s knock on the door a week later, and the cold, prodding examination that he cannot escape no matter how he tries to twist out of reach. The doctor’s inspection makes him feel he’s done something much worse than steal. He tries sneaking down to hear the diagnosis, in case he has contracted some sort of incurable illness, but he only catches Mrs. Cole uncorking another bottle.
-
“What a queer child,” Mrs. Cole sighs to herself, when she thinks no one is listening.
-
After this Tom grows aware of how very unlike the other children he is. He holds himself differently- with grace they simply have not got- and is bullied without mercy for “putting on airs.” Funnily, Billy Stubbs acts even snootier, because he still has some fine clothes and toys from before his parents were carted off to prison. Billy is worse, a noxious braggart who still has faith he will be welcomed home any day now. Nevertheless, Tom earns the crueler treatment.
When Tom laughs his voice jumps piercingly high, and the other children have always snickered with him. Now he notices it’s not with him, not really. Fortunately there is precious little to bring joy at the orphanage. Tom finds it easy, merely a matter of weeks, to give up laughing at all.
-
Tom laughs and laughs at Amy and Dennis, the sharp shrill sound multiplied a thousandfold by the cave walls, wrapping him in power. It serves only to frighten them further.
-
As Professor Dumbledore demands, Tom gives back all the things he has stolen. All but one. He once knew an orphan named Alice who had been quickly snapped up, by a middle-aged couple asking for a “sweet, gentle girl.” Tom thought them a rather silly pair, and not well-dressed enough to think of supporting a third person. Nonetheless when they made their choice he’d flown into a wordless rage and grabbed Alice’s favorite possession, a lone lost earring she had found and put on a string and worn like a necklace. It was a scrap of costume jewelry made of glued-together fool’s gold, the metal tarnished and darkened by age. Tom wouldn’t be caught dead wearing such junk.
Still he took it and hid it down his sock, and suppressed giggles as Alice ransacked her room, sobbing for her lost necklace. She has been gone from the orphanage for years now, taken who knows where by her family, so he could not return the necklace even if he wanted to. He ought to throw it out. Professor Dumbledore would want him to, a thought that makes Tom feel sick to his stomach.
Tom shoves it into his trunk, at the very bottom.
He shoves it out of his head, suspicious that Dumbledore can read thoughts with those jagged ice-blue eyes, and he covers the necklace over with piles of books and belts, with ties and neatly-folded trousers. He has other priorities now, much greater ambitions. He erases the tawdry thing from memory.
-
Tom arrives at Hogwarts, and he forgets all about the petty struggles of penniless orphans. There are better trophies to steal, wallets and exam answer keys and books kept in sight yet just out of reach in the Restricted Section.
In second year, Tom nabs a confiscated book of curses from the caretaker’s office for some light personal reading, only to have Lucretia Black pull rank as prefect and confiscate it once more when he is only halfway through the Cruciatus section. It never reappears in the caretaker’s office, which can only mean that she kept it for herself.
So up he sneaks, into the girls’ part of the dormitory, and like a fool Black has left it on her bed, lying open on a page about mixing poisons. Tom summons it and dashes right out, hiding it in his own bag- itself heavily cursed against outsiders- and arriving at History of Magic only a few minutes late.
When he returns to the dorm that night, he walks in on an interrogation. Lucretia has got all the girls lined up at the edge of the common room, and she has berated half of them to the point of tears. It is, Tom admits, a rather impressive display of power.
Curious, Tom drifts towards them before forcing himself away to the other side of the common room. “What’s going on there?”
“Someone robbed her room,” one of the boys mutters in explanation. “Had to be one of the girls, the stairs are charmed against boys.”
Tom loses his grip on his bookbag. It crashes to the ground, suddenly too heavy.
“Why’s that?” he mutters back.
“The founders didn’t trust boys enough to let us up there. As if the girls wouldn’t hex us to oblivion if we tried something.”
Tom nods mutely, fumbling to pull out any book but the one he stole. He lands on his Transfiguration textbook but the words blur past legibility, drowned out by Lucretia’s increasingly frenzied ranting. Tom’s mind races faster. This might mean that the founders’ charms are wearing off, but it is more likely the stairs submitted just for Tom, bowing to a familiar bloodline. This is surely more evidence of what his Parseltongue already suggests, that he is the last remaining descendant of Slytherin.
And that will finally make clear why he feels so separate from the people around him, as though floating above them all.
-
In time, Tom’s search for the Chamber of Secrets narrows to the second floor, and then to the pipes in the lavatories. Tom examines every inch of the boys’ before he has to move on.
It is a trickier business, inspecting the girls’ room. He earns odd looks the few times he is spotted even near the entrance, running the initial diagnostic charms. Eventually he buckles and shifts his sleuthing to nighttime, slipping out of the dormitory so he will not be spotted anywhere so forbidden as a bathroom.
It rankles, having to wait until dark to slip down to the Chamber. The bathroom’s like any other, just sinks and stalls and plumbing. He cannot grasp why he is supposed to feel so very out of place here, or what reason they would have for treating him like a threat.
Beyond the basilisk, that is.
-
Tom reads more and more books he ought not to. Dark tomes whisper promises of transformation, of rituals that will rip him at the seams and sew him anew. He holds those promises close to his heart.
Despite his vanity in every other respect he never has been fond of mirrors, yet he catches sight of his face every time he seeks out the Chamber. It is a handsome face. Of this he is certain, because when his mind wanders he sees the appreciation other people have, in the so-called privacy of their minds. It is a perfectly fine face, and yet he never quite recognizes it, floating in the glass like it belongs to someone else.
-
Tom looks older than his age, and so impertinent Muggles jeer at him for walking through London’s streets in the summer, for not serving his country by being blown to pieces on some desert battlefield. They dare sneer at him, and he does not yet dare cut them down where they stand. So he falls into an experiment, that would offend them even worse than his supposed dereliction of duty if they knew.
Finger waves. A white blouse puffed just-so. A simple skirt of a smooth synthetic blend, shortened to just under the knee by war rationing. Though stolen, it feels like Tom’s own, its fabric dyed a deep green.
Out he goes in the shadows before dawn. He barely needs to alter his voice. His way of walking smoothes easily into serpentine grace, and at last the city ceases to fling odd looks his way.
Not for the first time he is drawn towards the heart of London. Towards a place near the city center, so close but not quite, set apart by some subtle shift in the air. Most do not notice the difference. Tom feels it in his bones, almost like magic.
“Didn’t I see you in the pub, last week?” a Muggle cashier whispers, approaching Tom in the back aisle of a small, dilapidated bookstore.
He presses in too close for comfort, and Tom has no answer. He recalls the pub, if not this man, and there is no possible answer but to call sparks to his fingertips, to drown this whole shop in flames-
“The rouge could stand to go a little higher on the cheek,” the man says. “But you’re looking lovely today, miss.”
The proffered smile is kind, as though it guesses more than Tom knows himself.
Though Tom will cast the skirt away that night, he deigns to buy something from this store, to repay the man with genuine Muggle money. Bored by Muggle writers, he selects an empty tome: a diary. He keeps it close, and even when his friends at school jeer he does not erase Vauxhall Road, the mark of its origins emblazoned across its back.
-
Tom’s friends- a small intimate group, for it is not a title he hands out easily- murmur appreciatively as the letters rearrange themselves in midair. “Tom Marvolo Riddle” disappears, rearranged into “I am Lord Voldemort.”
“Voldemort,” Orion Black sounds out, and oh, Tom’s heart quickens at the sound. “Is that French?”
Abraxas Malfoy hums in confirmation. “Good thing about the ‘Lord’ in front, or I’d think it was a girl’s name.”
“Why? Mort’’s masculine, or it’d have an ‘e’ on the end.”
“It’s definitely la petite mort,” Rodolphus Lestrange interjects from the sidelines.
As the conversation disintegrates into chaos- “It clearly means ‘flight from death’, from la mort, I’ll have you know I just summered in Paris,” Abraxas blusters for the twentieth time- Tom leans back and enjoys the confusion, well-aware that “mort” can go either way.
“La mort” is death itself. “Le mort” is “the dead man.” Both readings are perfectly legitimate.
They bandy the name about, arguing until “Voldemort” rolls off their tongues, and oh, how a new name makes him more like himself.
-
Tom Riddle dies. He vanishes from this earth, consumed by cauldrons and black flames, by transformations so dangerous Dumbledore never even dared allude to them in Transfiguration. It borders on reckless, the way he tries nearly any ritual he hears of, pouring potions down his throat heedless of the pain. His body protests, and he does not care. Though he cannot articulate what he wants of it, he knows that it is not fitting yet, to meet the scope of his ambitions.
From the flames, Voldemort emerges. Not strong enough, not quite finished. This only excites him, as he hungers for what will come next.
-
“This ritual brings a great cost,” wheezes the hag. From age and rotten dealings, they have withered away, most distinguishing features fading into bags of wrinkled grey-brown skin. Voldemort has heard them called both a Dark Lord and a Dark Lady. He has no interest in wasting his time guessing which title is right. He has no interest in them, beyond what they can provide for him.
“The price is what many of your kind hold dearest,” they sneer, running one gnarled finger over the surface of a violet potion, “To buy this sort of superhuman power, you shall have to pay with, how does one say it in English … your manhood.”
Ordinarily, after hearing such a vague statement, Voldemort would attack them with a volley of questions. Seeing multiple likely interpretations, he would demand clarification as to whether this entails a psychological change or a physiological one or both.
He merely sniffs before remarking, “That’s no great loss.”
“I like you,” they cackle, seizing Voldemort’s hands and plunging them into the potion.
-
He makes the rest of his Horcruxes too, pruning away all the extra bits of his soul like dead wood hiding green. The fragments are kept in a ring and a necklace. In a golden cup shaped by Lady Helga Hufflepuff’s own delicate hands. In a glorious serpent, the ruthless hunger of her soul nearly a match for his own. In a diadem woven from silver and sapphire that he can scarcely sacrifice for this purpose, so tempted is he to simply place it upon his own head.
A boy once known as Tom Riddle used to spend hours over his school essays, cutting and cutting when he inevitably found himself a foot over. This is a more arduous process of refinement, but at the core they are much the same. After decades of alteration, his body and his self very nearly match.
-
Voldemort returns. He bears a new face, a new name, and the same ancient thirst for power. He reacquaints himself with the closest of his old Slytherin friends. The rest of Britain is allowed to know only Lord Voldemort, and no one else- excepting perhaps Dumbledore, the wretch- draws the connection back to Tom Riddle.
Truly, Voldemort barely recognizes the young man in his own memories, so transformed is he now. He has come so far, become something so much greater than a man.
Britain knows only Lord Voldemort. At first they catch only glimpses of a veiled figure in the shadows, and survivors remember only a high, piercing laugh. Rumors swirl that the whispers of a Dark Lord are wrong, that Britain has got a new Dark Lady on its hands. Soon the Prophet runs an article- remarkably vague and indecisive, even by their standards- that refers to the alleged-criminal-mastermind Voldemort as “they.”
Abraxas reads the article with an ugly sneer twisting his lip.
“I will speak to the copyeditor,” he seethes, and that must be the loveliest euphemism yet for the Imperius, “and correct the damned grammar.”
“Your attention is required elsewhere.” Voldemort stays his hand, deeply amused.
He is rather less amused at the reception of his new name. In fairness, “Voldemort” is obviously an assumed name, outstanding even in a nation of “Alectos” and “Albuses.” However Voldemort does not pride himself on his fairness, and he lashes out harder than usual when his opponents stumble over his name or worse, treat it as a jest. Polite blackmail attempts are turned into murders, clean murders are turned into prolonged tortuous deaths followed by necromancy, and somehow the rumor gets out that everyone should know Voldemort’s name but never use it. He comes around to this state of affairs quickly, as it is a rather stylish way to shut down the ridicule. “He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named” is unwieldy, grating on his nerves for reasons he cannot identify. He becomes rather fond of “You-Know-Who.”
-
After he murders the Prewetts Voldemort lingers, eye caught by the glimmer.
“Crabbe just tripped their alarms,” Rodolphus hisses at him. “Are you sure I can’t kill him too next time, make it look like a misaimed spell?”
Later on, Voldemort will not recall whether he agreed or not, all his attention suddenly snagged by a necklace lying on Lucretia Prewett’s vanity. It is fine Victorian marcasite jewelry, made of the same pyrite as that earring back at the orphanage. This piece must be of infinitely higher quality, likely to be charmed with all manner of sticky tracking spells. To steal it would be an unnecessary risk, an indiscretion rivaling Crabbe’s for sheer witlessness.
Before he knows it, it is tucked into the inner pocket of his robes. He believes his light fingers have gone unnoticed, until Nott throws him a questioning glance.
“It was cursed,” Voldemort deflects easily. “Deserving of further study.”
-
Voldemort gets rather a lot of questioning glances nowadays.
They are earned by the way he looks at Bellatrix, he knows. The Death Eaters have made their own assumptions, and it is undeniable that he cannot keep his eyes off Bella. She is an extraordinary witch and an extraordinary woman, one who caresses the words of every curse like a lover, who strides about in skirts so long they would trip anyone less self-aware, who practically drips cursed jewelry. Her glittering eyes and ink-black curls turn every man’s head, the second she walks into the room. She is Britain’s new Dark Lady. Of this there is no doubt.
Voldemort is not immune to her spell. He could have her in his bed, he knows. Though she is his wife, Rodolphus would not dare object. He might even join them if invited. Such a development would surprise no one at this point.
Voldemort refrains. Mere touch wouldn’t satisfy, he knows, for this hunger runs soul-deep.
-
Voldemort dies, soul blasted from his sinews by a flash of green. It hurts less than he expected to leave them behind.
-
Disembodiment is oddly clarifying.
Despite the humiliation of being reduced to possessing snakes, he can appreciate the predictability of their lives. Voldemort wakes every day. He scavenges for food, on occasion. On other occasions he only finds a rock of precisely the right temperature. Sometimes snakes are eaten by birds of prey as a simple matter of course, and Voldemort flits away easily from those scenes of carnage, shedding one physical form for another.
When it comes time to pick a new target, Voldemort considers a variety of factors: whether the specimen is young and in good health, whether the species is venomous, whether the diet will include more meat than insects. Nothing so trivial as the sex comes into the calculations.
This way of life clarifies. As he slithers through the forest undergrowth at twilight, a weightless wraith tethered to the physical world by the loosest of links, Voldemort is simply no longer human.
Memories resurface, unlocked from years ago at the bottom of a trunk. A hundred disparate shards reorganize themselves into solid ground, something Voldemort can stand on. They are simply not a man.
Simply, they never were.
-
Quirrell- with his clumsiness, his lack of pain tolerance, his inability to use a wand to kill an eleven-year-old or even summon a rock- fails them. Soon after that Wormtail- and now that is a made-up name worth mocking- comes stumbling back, sniveling out excuses, and Voldemort has no choice but to take him back in. The unicorn blood bound them to a helplessly weak frame, about as energetic as a lump of clay. They contemplate asking for a second Killing Curse so they might start all over again, until Bartemius returns as well.
“Th- this potion shall allow him to regain a more capable body,” Wormtail stammers in the next room over, where he thinks his voice safe from Voldemort’s ears, “b- but it will not be strictly anatomically accurate. The books say even the face is a thing of horror …”
“This potion will transfer all the advantages of Potter’s blood,” Bartemius retorts. “Should one as great as the Dark Lord care about the lack of a nose?”
His sarcasm is scathing, perhaps accompanied by a Cruciatus. Wormtail’s whimpering is audible through the walls. Voldemort is reminded why they liked Barty so.
-
A luckless old fool of a Muggle comes doddering up the stairs, soon after that. He challenges Lord Voldemort to a fight. “Face me like a man, why don’t you?”
This tempts them, the unwittingly perfect invitation, and so they turn.
“But I am not a man, Muggle,” they say in cold, complete triumph. “I am much, much more than a man.”
These are the last words the man will hear. It is almost tragic that he must forget so soon, when these are the truest words from their serpent-tongue in years.
-
For years, Voldemort’s skin itched, grated, pulled, like a set of scales that should have long ago been shed. When they emerge from the cauldron for the final time, their skin has been robbed of color, their form rendered skeletal and implausibly shaped. It perplexes some and terrifies the rest. It pleases Voldemort, which matters most. It is at last undoubtedly theirs.
There will be precisely one thing of interest under their robes.
They do not resort to thievery, for once, instead making a discreet purchase from a high-end specialty establishment. The garter belt and stockings are a far cry from a forest-green skirt, not nearly so drastic a declaration. Only Voldemort knows of them. Sometimes, yes, they are revealed in battle as the skirts of Voldemort’s robes whirl through the air, but no one squandering attention on their legs lives to tell the tale.
The metal of the clips and buckles is severe and cold even at the day’s end; they waste no warmth on it. The cloth is rare and light, delicate as gossamer between their legs.
-
Voldemort falls into Nagini’s mind sometimes, without meaning to. Sometimes they fall into Potter’s mind instead. His dreams seem familiar, which is a fact Voldemort efficiently exploits.
His dreams.
His?
They all call Potter the boy who lived, but Voldemort has their doubts. For the first time, it is slightly annoying to have a war between them.
-
They err occasionally when speaking- a natural risk of monologuing in the third person. “Lord Voldemort rewards those who are loyal to them,” they might say, or “Do not bend the truth to Lord Voldemort, as they see all.” Each time, their sycophants glance around in the hope they misheard, growing more frightened than ever before.
All is well.
-
They win.
-
And then that brat Potter just doesn’t stay dead, corpse springing up to action. It is a herculean feat of resilience. It impresses Voldemort, nearly as much as it enrages them.
They could yet flee to fight another day. They would, but Potter boasts, “Riddle, it’s your one last chance, be a man, try,” and Voldemort cannot answer that but with a Killing Curse.
As the curse rebounds there is a split-second when Voldemort sees their fate. They have no shield. No time for flight. Here must they fall, their soul stripped bare before unworthy eyes, their corpse brought low for grasping, uncomprehending hands.
No.
No.
They let loose one last swell of magic, and it sweeps into their body as the Killing Curse does, shattering every cell and turning it to ash. Caught by a breeze, they wisp away over everyone’s heads, lifted forever out of their reach.