Prologue
"Good morning Mister Riddle," a voice of called out to him. The Dark Lord looked around to see darkness. It reminded him of his room in the orphanage.
"Who goes there?" Tom replied. He couldn't see whoever was speaking. Darkness surrounded him, and his voice… speaking was difficult. His brain felt muffled.
"Yes, it's amazing what having all of your souls brought together after sixty years of splitting them will do."
"Are you saying I'm less powerful? Coward show yourself!"
"Yes," the voice said, "you are."
"What are you!?" Tom screamed at the darkness. It seemed to laugh at him.
"Let me show you what you have done."
Tom blinked to see himself standing where he had just been. He had died. He was gone. All of the plans and work was all of naught. Hogwarts was an empty shell, more than half of it was destroyed, the rest was uninhabitable ruins. Everybody he knew was dead, practically. The only ones left beside himself were the Malfoys, locked in a dungeon only escaping because of their coward like behavior. He saw Bellatrix and her husband laying dead around him. He looked up to see Hogwarts a ruin.
"Are you happy now Tom?" The figure turned into Dumbledore, "All of this and Harry still defeated you."
Tom sneered at the man, "Come to gloat have you? You still died, along with so many of your precious followers."
"Yes," Dumbledore conceded, "But you along with your followers will never again terrorize anyone."
Voldemort snorted. He had lived long enough to realize he had lost. He now could see all of his life strongly. His whole soul had returned to him and he felt power slowly pulsing back into him.
He looked across to see Potter and his little friends crying and hugging. He sneered at the disgusting show of emotion. He had never in his life had any regard for such emotion. Sure he had many women and men over his life time but he had had close to no connection to them.
"That is because you split up your soul had been split up for most of your life. You could have been so much more than you were." Albus said wistfully.
"A puppet?" Tom suggested spitefully. Albus smiled sadly, "No, not even a good man. I would have settled for you to have loved at least one person. Just to feel loved so that you could be happy for once."
"I've been happy." Tom said frowning, "I just never got to have it all."
"I want to give you another chance Tom. Please realize that if you could have love from one person you'd be happy." Dumbledore said.
Tom Riddle frowned. What did he mean by a second chance? Did he mean that he could live again? He wondered if he could defeat Potter with little support.
"Not on this earth Mr. Riddle, Not here." And with the snap of his fingers Albus Dumbledore disappeared as did the world around Tom. He felt his body begin to shrink and his powers grew weak. He screamed in pain before everything went black.
