Chapter 2
“When I’m dead,
I won’t join their ranks
‘Cause they are both holy and free
And I’m in Ohio,
Satanic and
Chained up
And until the end,
That’s how it’ll be.”
-- Saint Benard, Lincoln
..XoX..
How long, Voldemort? How much longer am I to be confined here?
Not long, he had replied. Within the week you are being mailed to the Potter’s house.
The Potter’s house. Ah, yes. So you keep saying. But I find this part of your plan complicated, to say the least. There are numerous ways for this to go wrong. How can you be so sure that it will go right?
Our plan, he corrects. Was that not what we agreed on? That we would do and have done this as one?
You’re avoiding the question.
And you’re avoiding blame.
Fine. I concede: It is our plan and I find myself in doubt.
That is a slippery slope. When have we ever doubted ourself before?
Never. But is not the sign of a good leader their ability to adapt?
That there is your problem. We are not a good leader. We are a great one.
..xox..
Tom Riddle has been lost to time for fifty years. His eyes are open but there isn’t anything to see -- except, in front of him, always, an open diary and a quill, never needing ink. He can feel nothing on his skin except his stupid book and stupid quill and it’s gotten to a point where he isn’t sure he has skin at all. His certainty of personhood is fleeting.
Fifty years ago, the version of himself allowed to wander the world as it is, the version of himself that is sure of his skin and can feel and see a world that exists, damned this part of him to their diary. He is sixteen and already a murderer, already trapped in a stagnant world of nothing.
He is at first at peace with it. By existing as a separate entity, he has ensured both he and his other self’s immortality. The relief he feels is immeasurable. No longer can the weakness of the flesh be held over him.
Voldemort writes him daily. They both celebrate their victory and make plans to go forward, but Tom (and he is Tom, his other self Voldemort, they must establish some sense of distinction) finds his contributions becoming less and less of value. What he does not know of the world, a world that is in constant evolution in the way Tom is not and can no longer be, he cannot comment on.
And those plans go forward, but they do so with Voldemort (without Tom). Tom gets only a secondhand account of their accomplishments. Accomplishments that, with time, something he has far too much of… do not feel like they belong to him in the slightest.
It’s not fair. He’s the one suffering for their immortality but he reaps none of the rewards that should and do come along with it? It is not fair.
He complains about this on their seventeenth birthday and Voldemort simply tells him maybe it is best that they don’t talk as often. After all, Tom doesn’t want a constant reminder of what he cannot have, does he?
But he does. Of course he does! A secondhand life is better than no life at all and that’s exactly what this is -- this blackness and sensory deprivation, interrupted by only the diary that binds him. Why in the world would he want less than this?
Voldemort doesn’t listen. Doesn’t care. And Tom begins to wonder when it was no longer just their names that differed.
Tom tries desperately to keep conversations going. But Voldemort does not do the same.
He gets a passage only when Vodlemort wants advice from someone who is exactly like him (something he is becoming wrong to assume), and Tom realizes he’s being treated like one of their (no, no, not their: his) followers -- nothing more than a body to bounce ideas off of, picked up and dropped at Voldemort’s convenience.
Tom stops responding to the few messages Voldemort still sends. Voldemort doesn’t even seem to care about that, either.
You are worse than selfish. Selfish implies you prioritize purely yourself but calling you that would imply that you care for me, too, a part of yourself chipped but there, ever there, and still you -- but you do not care for me. You are not even selfish. You’re just mean.
He supposes he is partly to blame. After all, it was their plan, in the beginning, when they were still one person, one soul, whole; the concept and execution of Horcruxes was a flawed idea. Nothing went wrong because there was nothing right to begin with.
Voldemort speaks of a boy he is in love with and Tom, for the first time since his imprisonment (and was not what this is? Imprisonment? It feels wrong to call it anything else), shuts the diary. He is flooded with what he can only identify as jealousy. You have fallen in love. Meanwhile, what have I done? Sat here, alone and abandoned by the one person who was supposed to have cared for me? Sat here feeling close to nothing. I don’t want to read about your lover.
I don’t want a secondhand account anymore.
No.
I think there should be no account. It’s not fair, what we have now. The boy you love should die. You should die. The whole goddamned world I am not a part of can rot and die and wilt for all I care.
It’s not fair. This isn’t fair. It should be fair.
He is already dedicated to daydreams of complete and total destruction when, thirty nine years into his isolation, Voldemort writes him again. Tom glances at the text and intends to leave it unanswered, like always, when he realizes that would be the worst (second worst) decision he would have ever made.
I have a plan to assure you a vessel, he wrote. A vessel. A vessel! A vessel is a promise of life. He hasn’t been alive in so, so long.
Tom writes back, hesitant, burying his eagerness with well ingrained wariness, How? The better question is Why now? Why have you waited almost four decades to free me? What has changed?
But he doesn’t ask that. One thing at a time.
An opportunity has presented itself.
Has it?
Yes. You need only take the soul of James Potter -- a stupid man, complimented only by his Pureblood status and wiser wife, Lily Potter. Tom doesn’t know the names. He gets the sense he should. More things he has missed out on. More things fit to burn. Hardly a challenge. Then kill the spare and…
And what?
Leave the child. He is more valuable alive than dead.
Leave the child? Valuable? Voldemort has something in mind he’s not saying. What use does he have for the Potter heir? It’s fishy. It’s fucking shady.
And yet.
And yet, Tom doesn’t care. Whatever Voldemort does is not his business. The Potter child, whose parents Tom didn’t even live to know, is not any of his business, either. So what if Voldemort’s shady? Shady is Voldemort’s middle name.
So Tom builds a plan in his mind. He will do the bare minimum to ensure himself a vessel. He will take the soul of poor, dumb, in love James Potter, and kill his wife, leave their child, none of it of any concern to him.
And then he will do everything in his power to kill his other self. Everything. To do otherwise wouldn’t be fucking fair.
For now he must play pretend. Must act like Voldemort is one of his followers, filling him with lies made to please. It’s what Voldemort does to him anyway. What does it matter that he’s now returning the favor?
So Tom lets nothing on. Tells him After that, what do I do?
Wait at the Potter’s house. I will be there shortly after my request is fulfilled.
How will you know?
Do not ask such prudent questions. I will know because we always know. I have my ways.
Arrogance is a disgusting (worthy of burning) look. How had he not realized that before? And after we reconcile? Will I be forced to lick boot and kneel before you?
Voldemort of course acts like he had not noticed the divide between them with the growing years, as if their conversations had not been one-sided for what must be a decade now. Whyever would I allow such a disgrace? You are my soul. It is fitting that you rule with me.
That becomes a recurring theme, Voldemort’s obsession with the word ‘we.’ He realizes they are more powerful together than apart and Tom knows all about Voldemort and power.
We are a great leader. We will rule together. We are one.
But they are not. Tom says nothing, but he knows they are not. If they are one, why is he the one in here, and Voldemort the one out there? Voldemort has not experienced even a fraction of what Tom has, the pain, the suffering, the desolation. What part of them is shared? Not even their name at this point. To imply anything different just pisses Tom off more.
And as the execution date for ‘their’ plan creeps forward, so does doubt. What if James is not as stupid as Voldemort thinks he is? Hasn’t he considered that by putting Tom in close proximity to Lily, that one redeeming factor of Pureblood Prince James, is an unnecessary danger? Why can’t he just take the soul (skin, skin, skin) of some lesser wizard, then kill the Potters? Why must the tasks be combined?
Doubt is something that Voldemort doesn’t do. He dismisses Tom’s worries with assurance that is only overbearing self-importance, some deeply settled narcissistic insecurity. He… deserves to die, Tom realizes. It’s not a matter of what he does and does not want -- it’s a matter of what is now just, and what has always been.
Tom deserves to die, too. He’ll have to if he wants Voldemort dead. He’s okay with that. He’s okay with most things often.
Tom tries to talk Voldemort into sense (tries to talk sanity into the insane) and unsurprisingly, fails.
Whatever.
At least he will have a form fit for destruction soon enough.
But he is sent to the Potter’s house, has two conversations with James Potter, and then…
And then nothing. Nothing happens. Once again Voldemort’s plan is flawed at heart and in execution and Tom is left to pick up the pieces.
The fact that he had let himself hope at all hurts the most.
He begins to wonder what might’ve happened. To ponder on their -- his -- failure hurts, too, but what else is there to think about, all alone again?
In the few conversations Tom had held with James Potter, a few things quickly became very clear. James Potter was passionate. Caring, loving, and stupid, the perfect target in theory. Voldemort had read him right; a fool in love. What Voldemort did not see coming was the “in love” part being more relevant than the “fool” one. James of course would show the new, cool, talking diary to the woman he loves. And she would of course see through it. Of course. Of course -- and Voldemort’s the fool to have expected otherwise.
Where is Tom now? Where in the outside and REAL WORLD is he -- what is he to people, what is he to Voldemort? Is he sitting on a shelf, looking inconspicuous? Looking like every other book and not a person, not a sliver of a soul sent away to kill and now left to die? Is he buried under layers and layers of other items, intended not to be viewed ever again by any other soul, living or dead?
Had James and Lily already forgotten about him? Surely they had not. But they might’ve. It would be just Tom’s luck.
Voldemort… Why, it seems like he’s forgotten Tom, too. What other explanation for Tom’s renewed estrangement is there? Unless he hasn’t forgotten. Unless it is just apathy. Both options are equally unfair.
After a week, maybe a few months, of the Potter couple living when Tom should’ve killed them -- Voldemort must’ve figured out that something went wrong. He is foolish but not dumb. And then… what? Did he not send someone to retrieve him? Consider him dead already and not worth retrieving?
With bitterness and hatred for his own soul and for his own incautious and reckless actions, he waits. On a shelf, buried in a chest, left in an attic in an empty, hollow house -- wherever he is, he has nothing left to do but wait. For someone to write to him. For someone to give him their soul. For long overdue revenge.
He simmers in his bloodlust for years more, eleven since the last time he was contacted by anyone ever, and convinces himself he will simmer forever. He will wait forever. The world will destroy itself without him.
He isn’t real. He isn’t a person. He has no skin.
When someone starts writing in his diary (fifty years too late), he doesn’t think it’s real, either. But they keep writing, and writing, and their handwriting is messy and he cannot even bring himself to pay attention to the content because holy SHIT.
It is real -- they are real.
When his mind comes back to him and the shock leaves his body, he realizes something that is not as surprising as the fact he’s being written to again, but does come close.
This is a Potter. Not James or Lily. And a schoolboy, young, in his fifth year. This is their son. The very one that Voldemort intended to keep alive.
What makes you so special? Why did Voldemort find you valuable but me, not? He left me for dead. He wanted you alive.
I hate you for it.
I hate him for it.
I hate me for it, too.
Whatever makes you special… I intend to find out. And then steal it. Your skin included.
He has waited fifty years for the chance to live again. At this point, what is one year more?
..xox..
The evening Harry Potter finds an indestructible dairy starts with a cup of black coffee and a tarot reading. He dreamt that night of a caricature of himself chasing him through a maze of hedge. The Other Self’s fat had turned to sludge and was melting off his body, leaving a trail of bloody pudge in his wake.
When he awoke he realized that he was the Other Self all along. And he had so much fat to melt, didn’t he?
So yes. He started that evening with a cup of black coffee and poor body image and an on the whim decision to do a tarot reading for himself.
He clears the table in front of him of plates and dishes -- dishes of food that look so, so good right now, he’s so hungry, what is he doing -- and knocks his fist against the deck of cards and shuffles them. He is aware of his classmates giggling at him and thinks sourly oh, hasn’t that got OLD? He has been doing tarot readings ever since he started coming here. They have had all the time in the world to make fun of him for it.
That’s what he gets for being sorted in Ravenclaw, he supposes. Surrounded by hatred of the superstitious.
Harry scowls and ducks his head. Fine. They can hate him. He hates them, too. He doesn't need them or anybody.
He’s got his black coffee and cards.
The first card is meant to answer the ‘Thinking” category. What things are on your mind today, what are you going to be thinking about a lot, etc, etc. He gets an upright Seven of Wands and almost smiles.
Perseverance. (To what? His self destructive habits? He wouldn’t doubt it.) Defensive. (To what? To justify his self destructive habits? … Well, he wouldn’t doubt that, either.) Maintaining control. Self explanatory.
The second card, Ace of Wands, upright, meant to apply to his feelings (how are your emotions today? Dominant feeling, etc) says that today he will feel creative. Inspired, filled with willpower and desire.
It is… promising, he decides. Maybe he will write something very good today. (He hopes he is able to write at all.)
His final card is about what he’ll be doing today. He finishes off his cup of coffee with a grimace and stares longingly at the food, pushed out of the way for his reading.
He thinks he will do nothing today. Just like every other day, it will be exactly like the last. He will accomplish nothing. He won’t be able to focus or write and socializing isn’t even a possibility. He will spend all day hungry. That’s it.
For whatever reason despite this, he flips over the last card.
Death. Upright. Representing the end of a cycle, new beginnings, and change. Harry scoffs and puts the cards back in the deck, thinking that this is why Ravenclaws doubt tarot cards. Because they can give readings like that, like total nonsense.
Harry doesn’t take well to change. He never has. There is nothing different about today.
..xox..
That night Harry shifts through his trunk, meaning to find his other pack of tarot cards buried in there somewhere (maybe the pack he has now is nonsense because it’s faulty and if you can’t fix it, replace it) when his hand brushes across a book.
Leather. Fancy, embroidered, leather.
Harry frowns. He doesn’t own a leather book. He pulls it out from the bottom of his trunk and cannot help but marvel at it. On the middle of the front there is a crest. A name is listed in the corner.
It is beautiful.
But he knows this crest. And that name -- There is a war going on, and he knows this symbol, and that name, are a part of it. A very big part of it. The symbol is known as the Weeper’s Mark. It’s a snake wrapped around a skull and the two snake’s eyes are diamonds and Harry thinks the diary is very much like him. Seen as beautiful when it is very much ugly.
He doesn’t know how this diary ended up in his possession. He doesn’t know why it is blank despite the cover's implications.
He knows he shouldn’t keep it. Logically, the best option would be to give it to Dumbledore. He plans to in the morning. But morning comes and he stays seated at his spot at the Ravenclaw table, the diary shoved under the rest of his books.
It’s blank. So there’s nothing Dumbledore would gain from it, no harm in keeping it. Right?
And, besides, Harry’s been needing a journal.
..XoX..
“I am deluded layers deep
Convinced stockholm syndrome is a synonym of freedom
I can dance with sycophancy
Under the lumen light of survival
But under the layers and layers of puffy dresses
And gold watch covered bruises
There is a heart that will not beat
And a girl I know too well
Can I settle for this? For him?
I can gift shrouds of fasciation in way of leeway
Say that this is what I deserve
Say that the path easiest traveled
But, as I bat my eyes and breathe misplaced sympathy,
I know that even if all is insanity,
This, in particular, is madness.”
-- Harry Potter, “Eight of Cups.”