A slow, low moan reverberated across the painfully white walls of King's Cross Station, a small parcel sat on the glisteningly white floor, red raw arms reaching out to the sky, like a small baby reaching out for the awaiting embrace of a mother. A little way off a tall, ancient man with a beard that tucked into his belt was talking to a straggly teenager, who was adorned with a lightning bolt scar. They spoke of their past and their future opportunities, their conversing unheard by the being that murmured so pitifully, only gaining the occasional glance from a boy that did not understand whom the murmuring came from.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, or otherwise known as Lord Voldemort lay on the floor helpless and weak, his arms flailing pitifully at his last attempts to cling onto life. His face had no resemblance to his former self, horcruxes or no horcruxes, morphed into something that even a boy bound to him by a prophecy did no longer recognise. His arms were red, the skin clinging onto the thin bones of his framework, his eyes were now white and blood shot, squinting against the blinding light that was the room itself.
Before long the two other figures rose from their seats, seemingly unwilling to part one another once more, the straggly teen suddenly fell to the floor as though dead and disappeared with a resounding pop. The tall wizard whom Tom recognised as Albus Dumbledore bowed his head and walked over to the pile of blankets that encased Tom. Tom's arms reaching out beseechingly, the only help he could ever call upon in human form was also the only one he ever feared.

"The train shall be arriving soon Tom," informed Dumbledore with an air of casual conversation about him. "I must say that I am glad to be boarding it now, all of the resisting and favour asking has been rather draining."

Tom's eyes sought out Dumbledore's desperately, not knowing or even understanding in the slightest what he was talking about, he just wanted to return to his body, it was impossible, how could the Potter boy know of his horcruxes? He was Lord Voldemort, immortal, all powerful, the one that everyone feared.

"Eleven o'clock exactly it arrives," said Dumbledore once more, bouncing up and down upon his heels, not glancing at the pile of blankets at his feet. "Just as it always has done; the first journey into a proper magical life and the last one from it. To think that every wizard alive has travelled upon that train, many of which I have seen off myself, stuck upon this platform." Dumbledore stopped talking for a moment and looked over his half-moon spectacles at Tom for the first time. "So many good witches and wizards I have seen move on, many of them before their time and it was your entire fault. Just a while ago I was sad to see that Severus had indeed fallen, I can't deny that I hoped he would survive, he could move on perhaps at last to think that the murderer or his one and only love had at last fallen. I have also seen some of my students pass through, Fred Weasley and Colin Creevey for example departed together. But alas there are so many, how many orphans do you want to create Tom? Did you think that because you were an orphan, by your own doing may I add, that everyone else has to be? Poor Teddy Lupin, his parents both dead and his Godfather close to it, how many other parents would have fallen if you're evil was allowed to spread?"

Dumbledore walked away, his footsteps echoing as the time reached nearer to eleven. "Why did you not try for remorse?"

The words were aimed at Tom once more, the tone of voice confusing to decipher and understand a mixture of disbelief and frustration, a feeling that did not often show on the wise man's face. "Why could you not remorse, Harry told you the one way that you could save yourself and you ignored him? He could have saved you, your fate was to be sealed one way or another, very few ever imagined that perhaps you could change your ways?"

Dumbledore stood at the edge of the platform, bouncing upon his heels distractedly, hands behind his back, the second hand of the clock getting closer and closer to the hour. His hands were in his pockets and his eyes scanning the decorated ceiling as though dwelling on fond memories. At the end of the station steam actually started to erupt from the fog and the whirring of wheels as the clock hit one minute to eleven, the train was coming.

"You made a great mistake in killing Lily Potter Tom," said Dumbledore quietly. "You got your wish, you are not going to die properly, you are going to be immortal, but I doubt you will enjoy it."

The blankest stirred slightly as Tom tried in vain to escape their clutches, helpless and frail, his mouth moved around furiously, words trying desperately to form until a single word managed to rasp from his lips. "What?"

"Don't you see Tom? You need a soul to pass on anywhere, it is the soul that moves on and yours is scattered and broken too far, there is not enough of you left Tom. When you killed Lily Potter and inadvertently created an eight horcrux, you broke magical law. Seven is the most magical number Tom, you can have a seventh of a soul and pass on, but an eighth? You are immortal, you shall stay here for the rest of time and beyond, in those blankets, death will not claim you, you are stuck here." With his final speech Dumbledore stepped upon the train, his robes billowing out of sight into a compartment. As the clock struck eleven and a whistle was peeped from the end of the station the train slowly, but surely departed.

Tom lay still for the first time since he had reached the place that he still did not fully understand, thin, bony red arms laying in a grotesque position at his side as Dumbledore's final words sunk into his brain. But the Potter boy had moved back? Why could he not return, what had made the Potter boy move back? Tom pondered furiously upon any means of escape, desperation and fear settling in thick and fast, Dumbledore could not be right could he? Was he doomed to reside in the white halls forever, watching everyone move on or back as a ghost and yet unable to join any of them?

A popping noise erupted in the white halls and beside him landed the form of Bellatrix Lestrange, her hair dishevelled, stark naked. A burst of hope erupted in Tom as his arms resumed their flailing, moans escaping from his throat. Bellatrix rose and clothing appeared on her, as it had done with Harry, the clock had moved back to five to eleven once more.

"What is this place?" Bellatrix whispered, gathering herself together and stepping slowly across the marble floor. "What has that Weasley woman done?" A moan escaped from Voldemort's throat and Bellatrix whipped around in surprise, her eyes still wild and maniacal yet with some amount of fear in them that in her life was only evident in front of her Master that she adored. "What in Merlin's name are you?" she shrieked, leaning only slightly closer as to examine a pile of doxy droppings. "Please don't tell me that I have to look after you as a punishment for my life's endeavours, because it isn't happening."

Her back turned from Tom, whose fists shook furiously at the one hope that he thought he may have had. Bellatrix had always boasted to be his most loyal servant and yet she could not bring herself to identify the being she once adored more than her own husband. Never mind, he was better off without her and if she turned down the path of ghost and he got back, he would make her pay dearly for ignoring him in his greatest hour of need.

The clock struck one to eleven again, the train drawing up as it had done before, a look of realisation suddenly dawned upon Bellatrix's face and a small serene smile. "Thank you," she whispered before stepping into the same compartment that Dumbledore had done just five minutes before her. Bellatrix Lestrange had been given another chance.

As the train departed the fear and desperation surmounted to something unimaginable in Tom, his most loyal follower had calmly moved on and he was stuck in a hall that was only the stop off point for the witches and wizards of the world. There was no way on for him and supposedly no way back either. Then it struck him, the hallows, the three hallows, all three had been united at the supposed 'death' of the Potter boy, what if he could somehow call upon their power. He had the elder wand, the Potter boy had the resurrection stone and the cloak, but it had been he, Lord Voldemort who had waited for the other two to come to him. Could it possibly work, if Bella had passed on then surely he must have fallen dead by now, they would all think that it is over, the magical world would be in celebration. No one would think of the Hallows?

Tom lay still for the first time that night, his mind working on overdrive as he contemplated the possibility of it ever working, if Bellatrix had just died then he must have done as well, it could only have been an hour since the hallows were united. The elder wand, the invisibility cloak and the resurrection stone, each one were united in that clearing, alike they were united at the point of death, surely they could still have the power to do what he could. Each one was created in defeat of death, Potter had done it and he had been there at that point, administering the spell that should rightly have killed him. Surely he had more power over the elusive death than Potter had ever had in the matter, he essentially defeated the boy that defeated death twice, surely that meant he could do so too?

As the thought entered his brain, all three of the hallows running through his head, a voice appeared too, not his own, not that of anyone that he had ever heard. The voice was bone chilling, a mixture of every harsh and grating noise that he had ever heard in his life, combined into one with a hint of smoothness that dripped confidence and arrogance. A voice that knew there was basically no means of escape from it's grasp, even though it had no physically embodiment, some could argue that it was a figment of the imagination, yet anyone that has ever had it enter their heads know otherwise. Death had visited Tom Riddle properly for the first time, when he was defeated before, his soul simply fled to somewhere to lay low, until a horcrux came in sight. He had no horcruxes now, only an eighth of a soul in his form, whether it be vision or human, death could freely enter his mind and tempt the soul, or in this case the remainder.

"Tom, we meet at last," whispers the harsh voice, like a whisper in his ear but with the ferocity of an icy wind. "You've been dreading this moment for years Tom; you knew it would eventually come to this. Perhaps if you had accepted your mortality you wouldn't be in your pitiful situation, you could have lived to an even riper age." The words were biting, wording any shred of a doubt that Tom had ever had in his life.

"I am going to defeat you," rasped Tom, his eyes closed and his chest heaving, his words came out loud reverberating around the stark white station, yet the voice could be heard in his head, and that alone.

"In your state? Surely Tom you do not believe that you are going to go back, you would also be wrong in thinking that you could go forward, an eighth of a soul? Dumbledore was right, seven is the most significant magical number, the amount of times the soul can split, with each you become weaker. Do you honestly think that if you got back somehow, you will survive for any length of time with only an eighth of what you were born as?"

"I CAN defeat you," shouted Tom, his arms and legs flailing once more as he desperately tried to fling the voice from his head.

"You are ignorant," stated the voice in his head. "Yes there are ways to defeat me; I have not been as stupid as to have taken a human form ever since the Peverells. But they are long gone and I am sure that you have little linkage to them."

"More than you know," grunted Tom, kicking violently so that he fell off the tiny plinth that he was lying on.

"Ah yes, you Riddles do have claim to some form of blood lineage to the brothers, not as directly as Mr Potter however and it is not the blood that saves you. It is the soul, you have none. I am surprised that you know of the brothers actually, they have been lost in myths, many centuries ago, I wasn't sure whether the legend still lived on, the appearance of you and Mr Potter only re-kindle that myth, it would have been wise to have forgotten it..."

Tom interrupted the voice of death by screaming: "WHAT DO YOU WANT! You have said that I cannot move back! You have said that I cannot move forward! I cannot move! I cannot block you out! I cannot do anything! WHAT DO YOU WANT OF ME!"

The voice of death tutted irritatingly yet still retaining the chilling tone. "Always self centered Tom. What did you want with the life of James Potter? What did you want with the life of Lily Potter? What did you want with the life of Harry Potter? WHAT DID YOU WANT WITH THE LIFE OF EVERY MORTAL THAT HAS PERISHED BY YOUR HAND!" The voice was truly terrible, a crescendo in Tom's head as he rolled around uselessly, the picture of the Hallows fading away in his mind, until the voice changed a little, a drawling tone that dripped with arrogance. "Because you wanted to defeat me. Well what do I want from you Tom? I want to wake you up to the fact that because you have made such a mess of the world you cannot go on, you cannot go back, you cannot exist apart from within these confines of the chamber between worlds. There is nothing you can do about it, you are stuck here for all of eternity and beyond, whether you accept that or not!" The rage was evident, clearly the voice of death was not often challenged.

"You do not understand," spoke Tom, a smile sneaking across his grotesque face an arrogance to match that of death's. "There were two of us that united the Hallows, there were two in that clearing that managed to unite the artefacts of the Peverells. Potter may be closer to them in lineage, but essentially I defeated two hallows with one, what does that tell you? That means that I defeat you, you have an obligation to return me to the mortal world, under what you created, that the one who unites the Deathly Hallows would truly be a Master of Death. Did you ever think that you would ever have to account Masters? I am rightfully your Master and I command you to send me back to the mortal world!" The words got stronger and stronger as he forced them through a throat he was unused to, until all of his strength was gone and he fell to the floor panting, slumped against the tiles.

"Your theory is correct, it is within the legend and my promise, however for you Tom the circumstances will be different."

Tom growled and opened his mouth as though to argue once more. But the voice of death soon shushed him.

"I never said that I will not return you, for you have spotted the loophole, one that I never saw myself, the magic will take place. But your circumstances mean that you will face a different returning to that of Harry Potter and it must wait, for the timing of here and the mortal world is different as you may have noticed." Tom looked at the clock, as though the embodiment of death was controlling the movement of his neck. The hands were showing ten to eleven. "Eleven is when the train next comes, but you will not be catching it," stated the voice of death, the chilling tone still just that.

"What are these circumstances? Why won't I be catching it?" rasped Tom, getting angrier and angrier by the second.

"For you are not moving on," said the voice of death, getting quieter and quieter in the confines of Tom's mind. "You are moving backwards to the mortal world, where you have so cleverly found the loophole and demanded your immediate return. As for your circumstances?" The voice paused and Tom had to strain hard to hear it any more, as though it were coming from the other end of a very long tunnel. "I cannot tell you them, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise," it laughed evilly, before starting to make a whooshing noise, like the escape of wind. "Goodbye Tom Riddle until the next time we do meet again."

A pop echoed through the halls as Tom disappeared, leaving only an empty pile of blankets.

Lord Voldemort had returned.