Her words shocked him for a moment, and he stood there in bafflement. He was standing there, newly resurrected and brimming with power and had just finished monologing to his captive audience. He was ready to prove once and for all that it was Lily Evan's doing 13 years ago that had temporarily ended him, not this waif of a girl standing in front of him.
This girl that looked nothing like the threat she was 13 years ago
"Say that again" he ended in an angry hiss as he stepped forward once. His Death Eater's flinched back and cowered, and yet, this waif of a girl stood they're unafraid and certainly not in fear of him as she answered him with only the slightest hesitancy.
"I'm sorry but I don't have much magic, I can't duel you," she said in her thin voice, somehow raspy despite how soft it was. She looked down, breaking eye contact and fidgeted with her wand. Her shoulders were drawn in towards herself and she looked like a strong wind would blow her over.
Rage erupted within him towards one of his most loyal servants, but confusion tempered it near instantly. He cast his mind back not even 10 minutes ago as looked at his memory of the girl arriving with the cup in hand.
She had not a hair out of place nor any dirt on her robes. She looked perfectly fine. Barty had obviously done his job and brought her here at full strength, so that he, Lord Voldemort, could finally end her himself in a duel that would prove once and for all he was the strongest.
He let his magic poke and prod the girl in front of him and almost jerked physically back in shock.
He was confused now, deeply and utterly. This was the child he feared all those years ago? Sitting in her crib, brimming with magic so strong he could almost taste it in the air. This was not that girl, it couldn't be. The child back then had more magic then the girl standing in front of him.
Something was wrong.
Was this Dumbledoor's doing? Someway to ensure his victory? No. Not like this. The man wouldn't abandon his morals so easily as to steal magic from helpless babes to empower himself, nor would he let someone harm his precious protege'.
So now the question was…Where had the child's strength gone?
He let his rage, confusion, and jubilation leave him as he purged himself of all emotions thanks to Occlumency. Then he stared objectively at the girl in front of him.
The first thing he noticed was how small she was. Gaunt and small, like a first or second year in height and no fat on her cheeks. Her skin seemed stretched over her face, like someone that had been in Azkaban for a long while.
His mind connected the dots faster than he processed the thought.
Malnutrition. Not enough food.
More links were starting to add up now, but he needed more information.
Magic could substitute itself for food, this - he knew. But only for a short while. This was more than just that. She would've been eating at Hogwarts, properly, even if she didn't get enough food wherever she lived.
But it was time for more definite proof.
"Look at me" he hissed at her. They locked eyes – Emerald green to crimson red and he dove in with a silent spell.
He dove past her most recent memories, ignoring all until he reached her earliest memory and was slightly surprised to find himself getting blasted by his own curse. He ignored the phantom pain that shuddered through his mind at that and moved forward, inspecting memories of her new living place.
He watched as her relatives were nice to her at first until her first case of magic happened – nearly injuring their boy in front of them with a flying wooden block that was summoned toward her. His curse and the mudblood's sacrifice must have drained her of her magic he knew, and it would've regenerated slowly, but something was still wrong.
He watched more and more memories as Rose Potter grew older and more and more magic happened until the punishments started. He suppressed his rage at what he saw.
Less Food, only just enough to survive with and that was WITH magic helping her out, making it last longer and gain more sustenance from it than she would've otherwise. If she had been non-magical, she would be dead.
Locked and kept in the cupboard under the stairs with hardly any sunlight, taken out whenever she needed the toilet or to bathe to get rid of the stink. He watched as the woman explained impatiently how to wash herself with the white bar of soap, then turned around a left, leaving a small child in a shallow bath of cold water; confused, scared and alone.
The woman had always washed her before that point, and it was nearly her only human contact since she had been placed here, excluding the mean pinches her fat whale of a cousin gave her. Now left alone, before schooling age, in a cold bath. He felt his rage nearly overflow into the spell but managed to hold it back.
He tightened his control of his emotions. He was starting to remember his own childhood.
He moved forward once again through her memories until he was watching as she was taught the route to walk to the nearest school, and then left on her own while they walked their son in proudly. Sitting in class 30 minutes later, having learned her own name from her Aunt just before they left, like it was an afterthought to tell the girl.
It was a startling revelation to the girl, realizing she had a name like everyone else that wasn't 'Girl, Freak or You'.
He watched as the class began and the children were asked to write their name down on the paper placed on each desk. He watched her as she looked around at all the other children – the first she had ever seen outside of Dudley – as they picked up thin stick like things and start doing things with them on the paper, somehow making lines in grey appear.
She had never seen these things before, and she did not know how to do what everyone else was doing. So like at where she lived, she hunched her shoulders and kept her head down and didn't touch anything, so she wouldn't get in trouble.
Voldemort watched this all, and more as her schooling continued. It was almost a week later when her teacher finally got around to her. He watched as the teacher was bewildered that she didn't know what a pencil was, or how to write or count numbers like everyone else.
Voldemort watched, almost proudly in a detached way, as she slowly, every so slowly, learned how to write her name by herself with coaching. She was taught the letters and told to copy them with the pencil, which she was also taught to hold by the nice teacher. He even patted her gently on the back and praised her when she had gotten it right.
Something she would never forget.
He watched as the next day, the teacher didn't return. Nor the day after that or that. Nor the week after that or that. The man was gone.
The first act of kindness from someone – that she could remember - gone. Voldemort figured the teacher had complained and gotten fired as the girl was punished that same night she learned to write by the fat pig by withholding food and being thrown in the cupboard.
He watched as the girl desperately absorbed the material that was being taught as best she could, just for another kind word and touch, even though some was beyond her. She tried and tried and never gave up, slowly getting better and catching up with the other children, but she never received that praise she was looking for from the new teacher.
That year's report card ended up being better than her stupid oaf of a cousin and resulted in her worst punishment yet – a tanning of her bottom from Petunia's hand and thrown in her cupboard with no food.
He watched as she sobbed and cried silently in the darkness that she now hated. He watched and felt as she gave up on that kind touch once again, as she locked away that memory so it was would never be tainted.
He watched the next year of schooling fly by, barely learning anything. Her report cards calling her inattentive and not all 'there' in the head. He watched as her accidental magic slowly waned and then stopped happening excluding the rare cases which left her breathless and colorblind for minutes at a time – a sharp pain from behind her heart. Piercing her until she recovered enough to make her body move.
He knew this was warning from her magic, saying she was dangerously low and close to slipping into a magical coma.
He dug through more and more memories until he came to her first year of Hogwarts and the sad voice of the hat mourning her strong mind and everything she could've been. He listened as the hat sadly placed her in the house of Red and Gold despite it being his last choice thanks to her quiet plea of just being sorted where everyone expected her to be.
The Hat's final 2 words before shouting 'Gryffindor' startled the girl enough that it took her a second to take the hat off and walk slowly to her new table.
She had never been apologized to before.
Every year the same. Never learning. Given up. Just going with the flow to whatever happened to her. Never turning in any of her essays because her barely knowing how to write. Barely being able to cast any spells, much to everyone's bewilderment.
Being the Girl-Who-Lived and not meeting up to everyone's expectations. Everyone eventually leaving her behind as she kept to herself and eventually, he watched as she was all alone, in a world that worshipped her.
He watched as she heard many outlandish theories on why she was a near squib. The most believed one to be his Killing Curse sucking the magic away from her as a babe as she defended herself. He knew that was a lie. His Killing Curse didn't physically touch her – it bounced off the Mudblood's protective Blood rune circle, using her sacrifice and magic to power it. The scar is from where a large splinter of wood striking her in the head he knew, stupid wizarding populace.
He watched as she was pulled along by the bushy-haired mudblood and the red-haired blood traitor to their first confrontation.
He watched from her eyes as Quirrell choked her and burnt himself and she just lay there – going colorblind from her mother's protection using her barely their magic to protect her, despite it also killing her.
Waking up a week later from her coma, and being sent home.
He watched her second year as fly by as she kept to herself, dead to the world as many things happened around her. She interacted with no one her age, only speaking when prompted by the teachers and being scolded for not turning in her essays.
He trembled when he saw that the chamber had been opened once again. He raged and screamed inside his own mind as he watched through the girl's eyes as Dumbledore got her to open the sink entrance into the girl's bathroom. He watched as Dumbledore easily killed the basilisk and struck his fifteen-year-old self down and destroying his soul anchor.
He watched as she was sent home and watched as she returned again the next year. The teachers had given up on her it seems, excluding Dumbledore that seemed to run into her quite often, ask some questions and after receiving silence as a response would walk away, only to try again a few days later.
He watched the year fly by and watched as the Time-Turner left the girl behind thanks to her collapsing from the magical strain the artifact placed upon her. Watching as she barely reacted that her innocent Godfather had died, even though the mudblood had tried saving him.
Watching Dumbledore react to her not reacting at the news that she could've had a loving father figure in her life, if only she had gone with the Granger girl to help.
No emotional response occurred.
Rose Potter was nearly dead to the world.
So when the next year rolled around and her name was pulled from the cup and she received scorn from everyone around her. She didn't react, she barely noticed. She forfeited each task as they came. Barty forcing her into the maze and telling her to touch the cup, that he was going to take care of everything.
Watching his own resurrection from her eyes.
He pulled himself from her mind and stared at her.
He waved his wand and cast some special detection spells.
He measured her magical core, which was quite large. But it was being constantly drained by some sort of blood connection, most likely blood wards around her home. He found a piece of his soul inside her scar, but it wasn't really his anymore and was also draining her magic to stay alive.
The rest of her magic was being used to sustain her and keep her alive. Keeping her organs and brain going, despite everything. Despite being 14, she had never had her period. Nor did she have any fat to speak of.
If he was to measure it, He would say the blood wards sucked 20 percent of her magic, his soul anchor another 20 percent and her magic keeping her alive 55 percent, leaving her 5 percent of her total core to be used for schooling.
He stared at her and for the first time in a long time, he felt pity.
Pity filled his entire being and so, he said his final words to her.
"Do you wish to meet your parents?" he asked her, face calm, yet his emotions warred within him. He could've done so much to her, turned her into an unfeeling tool, to be used against Dumbledore. He could've executed her brutally in public, to stake his claim of victory.
But despite everything, he remembered her memories and realized he had caused this small girl to end up this way that night 13 years ago and felt the tiniest thread of remorse. So he gave her what she craved. He hoped she would be loved in the afterlife.
She stared at him with unseeing eyes before nodding the tiniest of nods.
He spoke the words that had caused this one last time.
"Avada Kedavra".
Time Skip – 1.5 Years.
Voldemort finished his tale. His grand re-telling of Rose Potter's life to the Light and Dark forces arrayed around him and swore on his magic it was the truth. The Light side had collapsed in despair and shock, tears streaming down their faces.
He had won, with only a small amount of bloodshed, using Rose Potter as a martyr. He bowed his head once in remembrance of the snow white Coffin he had placed beside her parents and then stood tall.
He had a country to run.
XXX
I was going to write a lot more and add a heap more details, but its 4:30am here in AUS and Im dead tired. I might change it later on. Enjoy