Chapter 1: The Rite of Ascent

Tom Marvolo Riddle stood at the center of a large circle, drawn in blood on the empty space which gave the illusion of solidity, staring into the face of a man with tan skin wearing a black robe. The man, Vorea, smirked, his cerulean eyes glinting behind the straight purple hair which fell neatly below his ears. Of course, no true man could compare to Vorea. He had been born immortal, like the other four divinities hidden from Tom's sight around the circle. The demigod of chaos stood before Tom, his intensity disconcerting to the mortal who suddenly remembered what forces he had thrown himself to the mercy of. The thought of how terribly wrong his plan could go sent his body into a fit of trembling, but he quickly suppressed his fear. He gathered his focus and forcefully shut his inhibitions out of his consciousness, mentally scolding himself for the momentary lapse in discipline.

"I am Lord Voldemort. I fear nothing. From this point forward, I will also be immortal. Today, I am a demigod. Today, I am untouchable."

A cold laugh echoed around the dark lord, feminine and threatening in its amusement and arrogance, low in pitch and volume but vast in its coverage. The voice which followed sent a shiver down Voldemort's spine. "You may be powerful enough to qualify for the Rite of Ascent, but you have no hope of defeating any one of us, much less all five. Besides, you are at our mercy in this realm until we allow you to claim it. You will never possess the powers of old, so you will never truly be like us."

Devanise, the demigoddess of communication, scowled, her long silver hair flowing neatly down her back, the top layer tied away from her pale face and dark blue eyes. Voldemort could feel her disapproving gaze, but he forced himself to remain calm. Long, pale fingers swiped aside the black hair which had fallen into his eyes. He forced himself to make eye-contact with Vorea, knowing that he was the one who would ultimately decide the result of this meeting. Reddish-brown eyes, calm and focused, became locked on cerulean. Vorea grinned, his lips curling upward slightly on the left side as his eyes shined with anticipation, playfully malicious. "Well, Tom? Are you ready to Ascend?"

Voldemort nodded in silence, though it was more like a bow than a nod, a sign that he submitted himself to the will of the divinities around him. Suddenly, five voices were chanting in the ancient tongue of magic, Zaltraikan. The magic of old would respond to nothing less, and few contemporary mortals had the pleasure of even hearing it, much less learning to speak it. The words were nonsense to Voldemort, drifting through his mind in a fog of magic. Suddenly, Voldemort fell to his knees, never looking away from Vorea's eyes, now turned upwards as though he could see paradise in the empty white space above.

Voldemort felt several forces slamming into him before he felt the unmistakable sensation of being healed by magic. The five voices split to ten, then one-hundred, then one-thousand, until the world was buzzing and roaring with a multitude of sounds, beautiful as they were powerful. The magic which had torn his soul asunder was undone, his spirit in one piece again with no signs of damage or stress.

Then, the magic exploded. The pleasant orchestra of voices erupted into a cacophony of screeching, pounding, and ripping. Light erupted from the circle, painfully bright, but Voldemort still did not look away from the cerulean orbs, not even when red tears fell from his eyes. There was a force beneath him, like it was trying to pull him into the abyss below. The fact that no visible surface was present to support him, leaving the circle as the only sign that he was still safe, was not at all comforting.

Simple feathered wings sprouted from Vorea's back, predominately purple with cerulean and red hues alternating between the ends of feathers. Voldemort assumed that, beyond his tunneled line of sight, the other divinities had similar magical constructs, but he knew that such things could not be created for any mortal, regardless of power.

The pressure intensified in a soaring crescendo, pitches splitting to the extremes with whistling winds and pounding pulses of magic, the voices rising in volume in the background. Voldemort had never felt so much sheer power, no matter what rituals he had performed. This Rite was on a completely different level than what he could possibly experience on Earth. Each moment, the magic was flowing through him, filling him, breaking him, healing him, and making something new from his battered form. There was something beyond the pain, power and peace, such that he could not help himself. An almost manic grin split his face, and only the intense feeling that sound would somehow disrupt the moment kept him from laughing in pure joy.

The sound died suddenly, light expanding outward into the surrounding emptiness. Vorea met his unmoving gaze once again and smiled; it was the first non-threatening look he had received from the demigod. Suddenly, Vorea disappeared without a sound. Voldemort looked around to see that the others had done the same. However, he was no longer in an empty space.

Voldemort was sitting atop a tall stone tower, something he suspected to be even taller than Hogwarts. It was fairly plain with little ornamentation other than windows, but the surrounding area was covered in trees and rivers, caught in a perpetual dawn. The air was comfortably cool with a slight breeze which called to the new demigod. He knew without asking that this realm belonged solely to him to do with as he pleased. Nobody would be able to enter without his permission.

Voldemort sighed into the unclouded morning sky, feeling lighter than he ever had.

There was work to be done and a war to be won, but Voldemort would never die.

The world was full of possibilities.