Author's Note: I don't own Harry Potter.

Falling Into Cracks

The interesting thing about the world is that it's so busy that people always forget things. Everyone is caught up in his or her own problems, ignorant or just ignoring the little problems that other people might be having. One man is trying to fuck a rich woman, another man is killing his brother, a woman cradles her child while she tearfully watches the afternoon soap operas, another woman ties a man up and rapes him. The millions of possibilities that each individual person can be consumed in make it so easy to forget little incidents - like that you haven't seen your neighbor in two weeks, and only discover he's dead after a month. Everyone is lost within each of our own little worlds, where life revolves around our own problems and us. Occasionally we take a quick peek into each other's worlds, but it doesn't mean that we help each other, unless our wants and needs overlap. After awhile, the overlap of various desires makes it so that things get forgotten, and then cracks open up in the universe of worlds that we separate ourselves within.

A man looks at his new body in the mirror, remembering a time when he slipped through the cracks.

He remembers a time when he was just Tom Riddle, a boy with nothing but his name. A name left by a woman who died on the steps, leaving a child with his father's name. He had the misfortune to be born during a time of turmoil and poverty, which meant that even as a baby his chances for adoption were low. The orphanage itself wasn't a terrible place, but even children can be cruel people (even unintentionally), and they sometimes do cruel things to each other. They may not have known better, never having someone to instruct them in the difference between right and wrong - but that doesn't mean that they weren't wrong. It just means that there was never anyone to tell them that they were wrong. The state of being unaware of your own negative behavior is no excuse for the negative behavior.

He can remember a little bit of happiness, in the ward with the younger kids. But many the older kids had been made hard by the world. For some of them, the parents were gone for any number of reasons, but they could remember dreams of home – good dreams, bad dreams, and all sorts of in between dreams. Some of the other kids were those unfortunate enough to be left behind in the wake of the Great War, and they had never known any home but the orphanage and the occasional foster family. Enough of the kids there were full of hate, rage, and pain; all of it at the world and their situation, and all of it misdirected at making everyone as miserable as they were.

But that's making excuses for them.

Excuses can't change what was done. There were things done by both sides. They mocked and tortured him, and he – well, he had magic, and the powerful emotions to control it. Tom knows that he allowed a group of kids to shape him into the person he is today. He knows that there are no excuses for what he has done since then. No excuses for all of the killings and the torture. The rapes he committed and the pillaging he has done. He knows there is no forgiveness for him.

A voice echoes in the dimly lit study, "Dumbledore would claim that there is forgiveness for everything, but no one would agree with him. He's the only one who remembers that scared little boy anymore." Tom leaves the stinger off the statement. 'I remember him too.' He knows why there isn't anyone else to remember, because he killed all of the others. Then he started killing people with only spider-silk relationships to them. Then he found friends with their own grudges and agendas, and it kept escalating. Eventually it was a war against the world and everything.

It didn't mean anything to him anymore. Inside, he truly hopes that it used to mean something. It never brought him any peace though. It brought him a little bit of satisfaction, a little bit of vindication, and a feeling of emptiness.

Perhaps it was when people started dying for the war that it didn't mean anything anymore. You killed one of ours, we killed one of yours. You killed my brother - I killed your son. Mothers for daughters, sisters for brothers, children for parents and vice-versa, rinse & repeat, etcetera, etc, end of report…

Eventually it became circular logic. They were fighting for people who died. The dead people had been fighting for people who died. The killers were fighting because someone died.

At some point, a long time ago, someone got pissed off and threw a curse, and the whole war descended from that mistake. It doesn't matter which side threw the first curse, and it's probably lost to the ages. It wasn't about saving something; it was about us vs. them. There are no innocent bystanders, because if you aren't fighting then you simply have yet to join a side.

The third side is always an option. The third side is to be dead.

Tom Riddle has survived, leading his own "us" and surviving for years. "Us" has grown and shrunk through the ages, for any number of reasons. People once followed him because he was passionate and devoted, and they believed in what he could do. He had ideals and goals. He had many dreams, dreams that he never told anyone about.

Things have changed over the years.

Now Tom Riddle has people that will follow him into the mouths of death itself. They say they love him or his ideals, but no one has asked him about his ideals in a long time, and it has been almost as long since he woke up next to a warm body. Tom doesn't even try to figure out what the goals are. The idea that they're killing for the sake of killing makes him want to start drinking heavily. There are many reasons why they keep fighting, but most of them can come back to revenge and jealousy.

Wrath and envy.

Both emotions are things that Tom Riddle knows very well.

In fact, hate and envy comprise a good portion of what drove him to become the person that he is today. They once burned hot and bright, they kept him up for so many long nights. It wasn't about the grades, it was the knowledge that he was better than the others. The knowledge that he could destroy them piece by piece and no one would be the wiser.

Despite all of that, he is tired.

Tom Riddle's flames of passion dimmed a long time ago.

There really isn't a quest for redemption left for Tom Riddle. Atonement for his sins is so far out of reach that it might take him a century to get even a little bit of atonement done. Regret isn't enough, forgiveness is impossible, and redeeming himself is a joke. He doesn't know how seek redemption for his crimes. Maybe there is redemption in death. Tom might have been looking for death all this time. He knows that he could die by the hand of Harry James Potter, but not when or how.

He knows why though – or at least a little bit of why Harry James Potter should want to kill him.

Of course, by that same logic, he could kill Harry James Potter and then live on forever.

Tom Riddle has a little chuckle.

The idea of living forever scares Tom Riddle almost as much as death. Living forever with only your memories and sins to keep you company. Friends and followers are fleeting, and his friends died long ago. Remembering his current followers, Tom Riddle is disturbed. Many of them are the children of his former friends. Their parents have passed on, and the children are now Tom's children. His very own children to love and cherish, but he cannot save from making their own mistakes. If he could, he would scream and rage at them about making the same mistakes as he did, as their parents did.

Tom will not desecrate the memory of those who he respected. Not even those who may have been undeserving of his respect.

~O~O~O~O~O~O~

The first Death Eaters were a close-knit group of friends, and they had some kind of purpose. They were young, and ambitious for any number of things, but they were not evil. It was easy to mistake their causal acceptance of using each other for something else, but they simply accepted that they weren't the best at everything. They were a small group of people who saw that they could help each other. The group was greater than the sum of its parts. They were a powerful clique in Hogwarts; a small group of charismatic young men with connections in and out of the school. The teachers were impressed with their skills with mind, cauldron, tongue, and wand. Outside of the school, they were businessmen and artisans, politicians and cousins, and occasionally they were even criminals. Watching each other's back was something that they did well, and every one always had a perfectly reasonable alibi or witness. They talked, fought, stole, cheated, and won with each other. Some day they would torture and kill with each other.

Each of them had one day, a single time between sunrises, when they died with each other. Sometimes in another's arms, sometimes just in their hearts, but they always died with their friends, because none of them ever had anything else at the end.

They would get drunk and confess their sins and obsessions to each other, learning things that would never be repeated in the company of others, only to discover how much they had in common. In such a cunning house, most were afraid to have close friends, but the trust that the Death Eaters had, it was what made them so powerful. The ability to know what they wanted, and know that someone would always be there, watching their backs. They were all driven hard - to fight, to protect, to love, to succeed, to live, to discover, and at the end…to control, to destroy, to kill.

It seemed so easy to reach out and grab the world by the horns.

Things were on a much smaller scale back then. It wasn't so much a war as it was a struggle to gain power. They helped each other on the side, more like a secret society than a combined unit. While a few rose in political power, they all spent their time dabbling in collections of older types of magic – many of these same magics are now classified as dark arts by the Ministry. The magic was so alive back then, it felt good. They found strange and beautiful things, and made even more beautiful things. All of it for power.

Power for its own sake was so amazing. Power to defeat death. Power to control the masses. Power to destroy the masses. Even power to destroy the world.

Some of the Death Eaters left England to seek different types of magic. At a young age, they compiled their knowledge of obscure spells and techniques into their own little codex of magic, which was eventually published anonymously – and immediately banned by the ministry. Those who had taken small jobs at the ministry, or who were heirs to family fortunes, laughed at the fools and let the ban pass unfettered. Forbidden fruit tastes much sweeter to the soul, no matter its flavor in the mouth.

Eventually, they all came full circle in the world, and even the roaming Tom Riddle returned to England, after over a decade spent delving into the darkest magic. Trying to exorcise his own demons only made him tired, so he returned to help his friends, only to discover that the Death Eaters had become far less interested in spells and complex magic, and far more interested in politics and little games. Life had been cruel to them, and they would leave their mark by making someone else suffer. Love was dead, life was unfulfilling, and their high hopes and dreams were dirtied by years spent acquainting themselves fully with the pain of being human.

They wanted to eat death, but in doing so had been consumed by the pain of life.

The debate against Muggleborns and Half Bloods was hitting its peak as the post-World War II baby boom led to increasing enrollment in most magical schools. The Death Eaters fell on the side of the Purebloods, the family history they knew and believed in. Avery, Rosier, and Lestrange were all tangled into it deep. Tom Riddle remembers that it was unlikely that Lestrange really cared, apparently after his wife's death he had become a cruel man, with nothing in the world to care for. His sons, who came from what would be their mother's deathbed, became sadistic, hard, and cruel, because their father was sadistic, hard, and cruel to them.

Rosier really believed in the cause, but he wasn't the charismatic leader they needed. He was just another pureblood fanatic that had managed to pick up the money they needed. Avery was devoted to the cause, but he wasn't too desperate about it. The others were indifferent, but besides Tom, they were all Purebloods. And so, Tom Riddle united the jaded, tired, and angry men that the Death Eaters had become into a group of pureblood fanatics. The pureblood families that were favorable joined up easily. Word got around that he would accept powerful half bloods that believed in the cause. Eventually people who wanted knowledge and power started coming to the banner.

The new blood reveled in the knowledge of the dark arts that had consumed Tom Riddle and the others so many years ago. The variety of political tricks to devise and games they could play made them hungry for more. The political clout they now carried was only enough for a short period. Then they started using intimidation and bribery, becoming more akin to thugs than the pure aristocrats they professed to be. People suspected, but none could truly be sure. Anyone who had ever heard the name "Death Eater" whispered tried to forget it, to forget about the smirking faces and glittering eyes from Hogwarts.

If it was any of the Death Eaters, it was probably Lestrange who started the killing and cursing; he was always the most emotional about everything. But no one knows who started the hating. The hate was born of jealousy and rage. Half bloods and muggleborns had gained a lot of recognition after Grindelwald, because they were to be pitied. Some people resented this, but the government seemed to be encouraging it, putting people in power regardless of blood.

The hate had fallen into public domain.

The last chance for the safety of the wizarding world was when Tom Riddle applied for the Defense job at Hogwarts a second time. Hogwarts was home. Even though Tom had become a changed creature, he was still the best resource on the Dark Arts in England. Hogwarts would be safer for children, especially if he had the powers to defend the castle at his fingertips. He could teach them of his own mistakes and what the Dark Arts really meant. Teach them to live their lives to the fullest and not become consumed by the hate and rage that had consumed him.

When the only home Tom Riddle had ever loved rejected him, there was no longer any reason not to rise with the wave to wipe away the old.

They never thought about what would happen if they actually won. They made their little toasts to what they would do when they won, but the fighting wasn't really about winning. It was about learning, pain, anger, jealousy, and death. All of which floated at the tips of their wands.

But when Death Eaters started dying too, it became about vengeance. Revenge for people that were comrades-in-arms. Not necessarily friends, just comrades. There were only a few bonds of friendship here and there, people meeting and discovering others that are similar. Revenge for fathers and mothers. Revenge for brothers and sisters. Revenge for husbands, wives, and lovers. Revenge for children, born and unborn.

Right and wrong only went so far. Eventually, they meant nothing. Was it right that she should die by their hands? Was it wrong that he should die by my hands?

The deciding coin was flipped. It flew up into the air, spinning and shining. Sometimes the light on one side, while the other gleamed with the darkness. Other times it was undecided, both sides tilted and swirling with the light and the darkness. The answer was lost in the madness. The coin, trampled and broken from the fighting over it, could not give a clear answer.

Light and dark meant absolutely nothing. The light drives away shadows, but it also makes the shadows that do exist seem so much deeper by comparison. It makes the eyes blind to see in the darkness even a little bit. The Darkness is the absence of light, but darkness is also so many shades of weaker light. The darkness that consumes the light is driven to madness incarnate, and the light that destroys the dark is left covered with blood in the end.

For all of the speeches that Dumbledore made, it didn't change the fact that Death Eaters died by the hands of his order. When they retreated, upon the arrival of the Aurors, they had only delayed the inevitable. Sometimes it meant that they had left people in positions where they were only prepared to die. It was like tying a string to the trigger, gluing the gun to a table, cocking the weapon, tying the string to the doorknob, and then leaving. They always shut the door behind them, to lock the darkness inside.

Sometimes it was closer to slitting their throats and leaving them to bleed out.

Never watched them die, never had to take the blame for the death.

They never had to see those bodies. They left knowing only that they had done the greater good. The Lestrange Brothers discovered their father in one of those positions. Rodolphus and Rabastan both swore to never stop fighting. They had hated their father, but his death still enraged them. His face was twisted into an insane grin that enraged his children. He knew that his death belonged to his children, so he smiled when it was taken from them, just like their mother was taken from him.

Others were less noble; Lucius left his wife to care for the businesses and occupied himself with raping and killing. The feeling of power brought by their deeds made it easy to continue. Travers, Mulciber, Dolohov, Rosier… as the ranks of the Death Eaters grew, they magnified their resentment and became crueler.

Macnair hated the world that had let his family die. Tom Riddle remembered watching Macnair screaming as he stood above the bodies, ravaged by a battle between Aurors and a group of creatures driven in by the Order of the Phoenix. The battle was a mistake, the creatures were simply suspected of alliance with Tom Riddle.

Tom knows that Snape had fed the false information to the Order, but he will not tell Macnair. It was a mistake on both sides, and no one can claim full responsibility.

Snape. He was a man with many similarities to Tom Riddle, but who sensationalized his own suffering, making himself into a supporter of the cause before he realized what it meant. Snape was smarter than the average grunt, but possessed little of the drive that consumed many of the others. Tom watched as Snape went to Dumbledore in fear, but returned confident of his position in the Death Eaters.

Snape would survive, because that is how he lived his life. He childishly wanted to be better than others, so he would hoard knowledge and work hard on his skills; but he had little of the natural charisma to make him a leader. In this war, he had become a lone force with powerful allies on both sides. He was a mercenary for his own survival, and he learned how to do little else. Snape was a sniveling coward, whose greatest desire was to sit on the throne without making the orders.

Nott was one of the few that he saw regularly during his tenure at Borgin and Burkes. His wife had died as a result of their home collapsing on her. When the wreckage was pulled off of her, she was curled up on top of her infant son, her body frozen in place so she could support the wreckage. The house wards were under assault by the Order combined with Aurors for hours. A "Death Eater Safehouse", it was called. The cries for help from within were ignored, only the tortured screams of a criminal trying to escape punishment. The Death Eaters never met at any of the members' homes though, aware of the risks that posed to their wives and children. The apology and payoff by the Crouch administration only enraged the widower more.

Nott is tired now. The rage has kept a burning flame in his heart far longer then any of the others. He might have left, before that, but now there is only his son. His son who has a simpler view of the world, where black and white is a separate set of things that don't blur at the edges. Nott couldn't teach his son to live, not while he had lost himself in an unforgiving, godless world. Nott is old, and he will die for the cause, because he is afraid to die on a bed. His son will fight on – for a father who could never quite explain why the sky is blue and the stars shine, but who was far too human in a world gone mad.

Bellatrix started to slip after her fifth miscarriage. The one that was supposed to finally work out, so she could have a child to save from becoming like herself or her husband. She lost at least one baby due to her husband's actions, and it was known among the Death Eaters that there was no love lost in the family. Rodolphus would rape her just like any of the muggle girls that died in their attacks. She probably would have killed him, but her marriage contract bound her against that.

She had always wanted someone to love her more than anything. Her sisters had left her alone, tied up in their own marriages and dreams. Her cousin was firmly entrenched in the light, and would sooner spit on her then speak with her. Her parents were dead, and they were always busy in politics even when they were alive. So she kept trying to have a child to cherish and care for, the way that she never had been. The fifth time she got pregnant, she managed to secure Rodolphus in an agreement to leave her alone for the length of the pregnancy. In the fifth month of her pregnancy, the Aurors stormed their home in a raid. She was surprised, expecting only Rodolphus and his brother, since most people detested the family. Instead, it was a group of Aurors led by the Longbottoms; they stunned her repeatedly before bringing her in for questioning.

They drug her in, throwing her into questioning before giving a medical examination. The Longbottoms had been hearing horror stories about the name Lestrange since the war began, so, never for a second questioning that the wife would be in just as deep, they immediately began a painful interrogation. Crouch's policies didn't help the woman, authorizing the use of Unforgiveables in questioning, and then encouraging the use of Veritaserum if necessary.

Ironically, it was Sirius who saved her from the brutal questioning, noticing that she looked different then usual. One simple question revealed the full extent of the crime committed by the Aurors. The Longbottoms were horrified to discover what they had done, and they tearfully tried to offer compensation of some kind. Bellatrix laughed them off in a dead voice. She told them that they had taken her last hope from her, and that some day she would repay their kindness. Sirius managed to get her out, "a favor to an inconsolable woman," he called it. She wandered through Diagon Alley to the Leaky Cauldron, where she was ejected for disorderly conduct before taking a single drink.

Bellatrix returned to the Death Eaters, childless and broken. She didn't need a divination reading to know that she wasn't meant to have children. She snapped after that, becoming one of the most sadistic Death Eaters. Narcissa could only watch in horror, as her beautiful sister became a creature rapidly descending into madness. Narcissa had known that both of them were entering into loveless marriages, but what her sister was becoming signaled of something more sinister, something darker and more painful.

Tom Riddle knows why she went to the Longbottoms after his downfall, that attack had been planned for months preceding it. Bellatrix wanted them to suffer for her loss. When Tom discovered that there was a prophecy that may have applied to their son, he laughed, since that only made it so much sweeter to give Bellatrix the job. He didn't mention the prophecy; it was irrelevant to her job.

An eye for an eye, tooth for tooth, sanity for sanity.

The Death Eaters are all damned for their crimes, and they have nothing left but to keep fighting. They are screaming their names at the world, because they don't have anything except pain, death, and suffering in their minds. They are undone by their actions, so there is only death awaiting them at the end of the tunnel.

They were all people who lived their lives to the extremes, and when it all went to hell they threw themselves into the cause to drown out their sorrows. It was like a small fire that had been barely burning was built into a towering bonfire of dreams. Their sorrows fuelled the flames and kept it going as they lost people, their rage kept it burning for the next generation. The fire would burn down eventually. Perhaps at the end of the night there would be something left in the ashes that had been cleansed by the flames.

Tom knows that wasn't very accurate. He suspects that anything left would be blackened and burnt, skin peeling off as it tried to heal from the pain of the flames.

At the end of the day, Tom Riddle knows why the Death Eaters existed. It was so that all of these people could wake up in the morning and have something to do that they could understand. Going back to a life without these easy outlets for pain and suffering would drive them to St. Mungo's. They needed to change, to find something new to fight for and to hold close to their hearts. But when they were given that chance, to be free, they were lost or captured.

Tom Riddle knows why they had returned after so many years of silence. It was because the break did little to dull their pain. They found simple escapes that would stave off the madness they wrestled with a little, but they knew that they couldn't hold it together forever. The world cup proved that there was something that called them back to the escapades. Something that tied them together, and probably ties their children to the same cause.

They were fighting today simply because they fought the day before. Years had passed, but there had been no rebirth for them, no new dawn of the day. Fighting because their families fought this war, because they didn't feel like they had power over anything without this war. They didn't know how to do anything else except fight this war. Not even Tom Riddle can think of a good reason why he would wake up in the morning and return to leading them.

Maybe it was a debt of honor to those who had died before them in the cause. Or maybe it was faith that they would succeed. Tom's reason for fighting had faded in the light of the fire and simply became…

"I fight to keep the fire burning."

Was that it?

"I fight because I am the flame, and I will burn eternally."

Fear of death?

"I fight…to fight."

Fighting for the fight?

"I fight to save those who would fight with me."

Fighting for the others?

"I fight because there is still something to fight against."

For his enemies?

"I fight because my crimes allow for nothing else."

Nothing sounds quite right.

Tom Riddle calms his mind for a minute, releasing himself from drowning in his memories of sorrow and pain. At the back of his mind he discovers something new.

Harry James Potter.

And Tom finds something else there. A reason to fight.

"I fight…to teach the world to understand the darkness within."

In Harry Potter, he found the same darkness from his own youth. The same cracks that he remembered falling into, he saw before Harry Potter.

"I fight, because it is the only way I can teach."

Tom Riddle knows that the light could only teach so much about the dark. He can look in the mirror and see what the darkness could bring. But he also knows that with light, there is darkness.

Tom Riddle was too late to save his own children from making the same mistakes that he had, but maybe he could save the children of someone else. Maybe then they wouldn't have to wake up in the morning and worry quite so much. He looked at his hands, they looked more human then they had in many years, all thanks to the blood of Harry Potter. Maybe he could save a boy, one who shared so much of the same rage. In doing so, would he destroy himself? What purpose would it serve? Maybe the Prophecy had been fulfilled by his temporary vanquishing…was it truly going to be that easy to cheat Fate?

Harry Potter had given Tom Riddle a little bit of humanity back. Tom gave Harry a little piece of his soul. Two boys tortured by the places they had been left by an uncaring society. One had grown into a jaded, hate-filled man. The other was still growing up. If the opportunity came to lead Harry Potter without jeopardizing Tom's own plans, then he would guide him. Tom might take a little step towards redemption, because it is all he can do for the boy that he sees as a mirror of himself.

The clock strikes the midnight hour. Tom Riddle files those thoughts away in his mind, preparing to work on his plans.

But before anything else, he sends one thought to a sleeping Harry Potter. A thought that Tom knows was the truth, no matter what anyone says.

"My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I am your Defense Against the Dark Arts professor."