Chapter Eighteen: Slapped by My Son's Mother
Tom Riddle was an enigma. Born in an orphanage, the only thing he knew of his parents was his name—Tom Marvolo Riddle. Tom for his father and Marvolo for his grandfather. The other kids in the orphanage always knew there was something different about him. They ridiculed him, mocked him…But he learned to fight back. The objects in the box in his closet were his treasures—tribute from the others in the orphanage to keep him from using his growing powers to pay back the wrongs.
And one day Tom Riddle discovered that his powers were not unusual—far from it actually—there was a whole world waiting for him. He went to Hogwarts to unlock his potential, dreaming big and achieving bigger. Tom made the top grades in his year. He studied new methods of magic. The boy pursued projects outside of class.
Amidst the bigotry, the son of a muggle managed to thrive and make a name for himself. He even decided to stop bigotry itself. Leaving Hogwarts, Tom Riddle resolved to change the Wizarding World. But with power comes corruption. As his followers grew, he saw them less as supporters and more of an army.
Some said that Lord Voldemort, as Tom Riddle became known as, had no soul and perhaps it was true. He killed hundreds, and on the way he lost sight of his original goal. He fell into his own hierarchy with him at the top.
As his power and influence grew, a prophecy surfaced—a prophecy of a boy who had the power to defeat the greatest sorcerer and threat of their time. When one has power, they never want to lose it. It is addicting. So, Voldemort naturally went after the boy. But then, he remembered—he remembered that power can be used. The world isn't split into good and bad—to Voldemort, there was only power and those too weak to use it.
So he took the boy, not knowing that the boy would be his undoing.
And now Voldemort found himself sitting on a bench in a blank expanse of nothing. It was as though he was surrounded by a thick mist that had not quite decided what to be yet. He was perfectly alone. No one was watching. No one else was there. He was not exactly sure he was there himself.
But he was there, he realized. He was wearing a fresh, soft pair of black robes, and any blemish that had been on his skin from the battle was now gone. In fact, if he could have seen himself he would have known that his hair was no longer brown. It was black as it originally had been. His glamour was gone.
At the back of his mind, he felt like he shouldn't be there. But he was there, wherever there was. The man vaguely wondered if something had gone wrong—he had performed a ritual that was supposed to keep him from moving on to the afterlife. Not a Horcrux, of course. He had dabbled with those a bit, but after he read enough, he learned that once one split their soul enough times, it drove them mad. The Dark Lord, not wanting to go mad before he could reach his goal, had immediately abandoned his pursue of Horcruxes and turned his attention to another means of immortality—a ritual that could be done to keep one from dying.
There were many ways to stay immortal. By means of Horcruxes, one would split their soul through murder and hide the piece in an object—that way, one could not die unless the piece of the soul was found and destroyed. Another way was to drink the Elixir of Life. It kept one young and healthy, but it had a dependency that no Dark Lord wanted and it did not save one from dying if they were hit by the Killing Curse. A third way to live on and escape death was to drink unicorn's blood—an act so low that it would reduce the drinker to a pitiful creature, only hanging on desperately to life with each sip.
The fourth and final way that Voldemort discovered was a ritual that could keep one alive, young, and healthy no matter the circumstance. He did not have the chance to perform it at first. In fact, he did not get the means to it until the end of his son's third year. The ritual's key ingredients were a vial of the Elixir of Life, and a long incantation.
At first, Voldemort had scoured the Wizarding World, searching in vain to see if someone, anyone, sold vials of the Elixir of Life. Finally, he gave up hope. Then, his son had brought him the Philosopher's Stone, and he had all the ingredients he needed—or the means to brew the ingredients. The Dark Lord, being a mediocre brewer, had waited—why rush into immortality, after all?—and the minute Severus Snape had been turned to his cause, aware of his reappearance, he had made the man brew the elixir, under an oath of secrecy.
Voldemort had then performed the ritual, which should have kept him alive (though there was some controversy as to whether it stopped the Killing Curse or not).
And still he found himself just sitting there, feeling like he was waiting on something. He stood, and looked around at the brightly lit, perfectly clean space he had found himself in. A long time later, or perhaps no time at all, a figure appeared out of the mist.
It was the figure of a woman.
She had long red hair and kind green eyes. Voldemort felt as if he knew her from somewhere. He had a fleeting memory of emerald green light, the sound of a baby's cry, and a red-head falling like a marionette whose strings had been cut. It was Lily Potter.
She glided towards him and he watched warily. Then, as soon as she reached him, she slapped him across the face. Voldemort staggered backwards, a hand up to his cheek.
He was not angry, and frankly he thought he deserved the slap.
"That's for orphaning my son," she said. Then, she quickly embraced him in a hug. "And that's for taking care of him," she said much more softly.
Voldemort stood still for a moment after she let go. He did not know what to make of her.
Finally, he asked, "Where are we?"
"That is for you to decide," she replied.
Voldemort looked around. It almost seemed like a clean version of King's Cross Station—the place he went to take his first step in his journey into the Wizarding World.
"I am simply here to deliver a message," she continued, causing him to turn back to her.
"Message?" Voldemort asked.
"About the prophecy," Lily replied. "Surely you must have heard of it."
"Might have," Voldemort replied, looking down. "Yes."
"The one with the power to vanquish the most powerful wizard of our time approaches. Born to those who have thrice defied the Dark Lord, born as the seventh month dies. He will have powers the Dark Lord knows not. Either must die only at the hand of the other, for neither can truly live while the other survives. The one with the power to vanquish the most powerful wizard of our time will be born as the seventh month dies."
"Yes, I know," Voldemort repeated. "It means while I live, Harish must die. That he has a power I know not."
"Yes," Lily replied, "and no."
Voldemort's eyebrows drew together in confusion.
"It is true that Harish has a power you know not. You raised him. Surely you must have discovered what it is."
Voldemort shook his head.
"Love," Lily answered for him. "Even though Harish was raised by the greatest Dark Lord the Wizarding World has seen yet, he has not ceased to love. You made the right choice in raising Harry. In what you thought you would find power, you actually found love. 'Either must die only at the hand of the other, for neither can truly live while the other survives.' This does not mean that one will live and one must die, it means that one must know love and truly live, for what are we without love?"
"So that means I do not have to die?" Voldemort asked hopefully.
"Oh, you have to die," Lily replied, "but not quite yet."
As she said that, the brilliantly white King's Cross Station began to fade until it was just the two of them surrounded by darkness.
"Go to Harish," she said. "He needs you."
And suddenly the weightless feeling was gone and he was plummeting down, unable to see anything. Then, it stopped and he realized he was aching all over.
After a moment, Voldemort did something he had been forgetting to do—breathe.