The Folly of Age
Age is at fault if it forgets what it's like to be young.
The Dark Lord does not regret, for he does not care about anyone but himself. Of course he would use love against his enemies—something he does not have to worry about. Guilt is an emotion reserved for people who love, and the human brain is a complex structure—it can create imagined pain out of such a strong emotion as guilt. After all, there is no good and evil; there is only power and those too weak to seek it.
He felt the crystal goblet's cool, cleaved texture graze the top of his coarse bottom lip, and he raised his arm, tipping the phosphorescent liquid into his welcoming mouth. The substance was slightly bitter but mostly tasteless, and, accordingly, he swallowed it, the cool feeling moving down his esophagus. There was not much pain which was quite a surprise. Only a slight touch streaked through his skull, reaching from the small of his neck to his forehead.
No, what really hurt was the image accompanying the fleeting burst.
A woman of an age no more than twenty-five sobbed wrenchingly over the corpse of a flaxen-haired man. Her face and attire bore signs of struggle, her hair falling like a scarlet veil, covering her dirt-streaked face. The reddish-brown color of dried blood stained the cottony fabric of her clothing; most of her attire was sodden and torn. She kneeled over the man's body, muttering meaningless words, rocking back and forth, back and forth, back and forth as a toddler—the only other person near the woman's dead husband—wailed. She, however, did not notice the toddler's reddened, azure gaze. Gradually, her sobs lessened, and her expression slowly morphed from agony and turmoil to complete vacancy. She had gone insane after the deaths of so many family members.
And then the memory receded from the forefront of his mind, back into the darkness from which it had emerged.
He opened his eyes just enough so another glass of the accursed liquid could be thrust at him. Three more images and three more glasses sojourned through his mind, his body. Each grew progressively more emotionally damaging, the emotions beating at his heart, attempting to crush his chest into a mere pile of useless dust.
His mind which, before ingesting the hazardous material, had been clearly organized was now very foggy, and he could only decipher short, fragmented sentences as he staggered forward, half the goblet's contents remaining inside.
It was as if he were of two minds, of two bodies, of two wills. He watched himself, though he knew he was much older now, glance desperately at a man who observed him with an immutable, stony expression. The man—his uncle who had taken him in after his mother had gone insane—nodded what seemed to be encouragingly. A small, wide-eyed House-elf smiled falteringly before him, and he could not quite raise his wand. "Well, go on," the man barked harshly, his black eyes gleaming malevolently. "Do not make me use my wand on you, Albus!" The House-elf trembled violently at the rough exclamation, her large, green eyes shifting toward the elder man back to the younger.
He lifted his wand—his heavy, heavy wand—as both wills screamed in unison for him to stop.
"I don't want to… Don't make me…"
And then a horrifyingly loud and confident incantation rung in his ears as his wand surged with power.
The elf was thrown backward into a wooden wall, gasping at the pain of the curse. He knew it was lancing through every nerve of her doll-like, fragile body as she squeaked and squealed and screamed. Feeling bile rising in the back of his throat, he spared a glance for his uncle. The man with the long, gray beard was smiling a toothy, triumphant grin.
He swallowed hard, his arms shaking, the effort to keep from retching growing more and more intense with each moment.
"…don't like…want to stop…"
The image did not fade out but was immediately replaced with a new one.
"I don't want to…I don't want to…Make it stop…."
A few sounds he thought he should recognize passed through his consciousness like aimlessly wandering livestock, unnoticed, inconsequential.
"No, no, no, no, I can't, don't make me, I don't want to…" Again, words washed over him, a soothing voice dragging him forcefully onto the shores of complacency. If he drank now, it would be alright again. The voice said it would be alright!
He drank eagerly—eager to please the soothing voice—eager to be released from this horrific place.
A picture of a great castle loomed from the shadows. Slightly muffled noise surrounded him, and he looked down from the great turrets which had kept him gaping in awe. All around him were people locked in fierce battle, yet he was standing isolated at the very end of the action, encased in a transparent shield not unlike a small cage. Through the glass-like, steel-strong shield he saw his friends and acquaintances draw their last breaths, saw them gasp as cutting curses released their life-blood from their bodies. And here he was, trapped inside a shield because he was a child of prophecy. All his life he had lived this way—isolated and trained by his unmerciful uncle. Until he had started at Hogwarts, that was.
But now all the people he would gladly sacrifice himself for were dying for him amidst fire and beams of soul-shattering light. All because they had befriended him. He raged against his cage, using every bit of magic he'd learned, light and dark, the magic of the shield only strengthening with every attack.
Finally, after expending most of his energy, he slouched, hugging himself in resignation. He would not look away from the last moments of his friends' lives. He deserved to see each and every one of them die for not being quicker, not being cunning enough to save them…
"It's all my fault… Please make it stop, I know I did wrong, oh please make it stop and I'll never, never again…"
The unknown, placating voice comforted him again, and he knew he could not disobey it. That voice seemed so familiar—so close yet so distant and out of reach.
He was a little older, and now he was in a different but similar situation. He was bound to something—he didn't know what it was, but it had stiff edge that dug into his stiffened back. But he was unaware of the discomfort. He was much too preoccupied with the men surrounding him, sneaking ever closer in the darkness—surrounding the other teenagers who had accompanied him on his journey. They were not bound, but they did not scramble, paralyzed in their own bonds of terror.
He was unable to blink, he finally noticed, and he could hear the incantations about to be said, the green light reflected in the blue eyes of one of the girls who'd stubbornly insisted on coming with him, who'd stubbornly insisted on being led to her death. He could feel the raw emotion ripping his soul apart as if it were a poorly-manned ship descending onto a shallow, treacherous shore. Instead of becoming numb after the destruction, the pieces of driftwood stuck into his ribs, splintering and settling in his stomach. He realized that he could not vomit however much he'd like to as the blank gaze of the attackers' first victim—his best mate's gaze—stared accusingly at him.
"Don't hurt them, please, please, it's my fault, hurt me instead…"
Once again he drank because he had been told to do so in such a pleasant way. It had taught him to hope…
Baselessly.
A placid room swam up under his eyelids. A frazzled witch wearing spectacles that made her eyes seem as large as saucers spoke in a deep, raspy voice, the magnified eyes glazed over in a sort of trance.
"The one with the power to vanquish..." she spoke loudly. Not again! He did not cast a charm on the room to block out eavesdroppers as the thought did not even occur to him in his shock. Not again!
"Born as the seventh month dies…" she spoke loudly. A child! He couldn't subject another child to that fate! He couldn't possibly!
"To parents who have thrice defied him…" A moaning voice whined, "Not Lily and James…Alice and Frank…"
"Either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can live while the other survives…"
"Please, please, please, no… not that, I'll do anything…"
He could not refuse that voice when he received the goblet another time.
Many images surrounded one main image that protruded out from the patchwork quilt of his memories.
He saw a house engulfed in flame, a crying infant, a lightning-bold shaped scar, a cupboard under a set of stairs, a small, neglected child…
"No more, please, no more…"
He quickly drained the next glass—he needed water, he needed clarity!
A boy landed with a great thud at the entrance of a huge maze, his face ghostly pale under a sheen of sweat mixed with grime. He shook tremulously—almost unnoticeably—betraying signs of torture. His arm clung to the limp appendage of a corpse—a handsome youth with sightless gray eyes—eyes that had once seemed, despite a lack of color, so vibrant and lively. The boy refused to be pried off the body of his dead classmate, looking wild and rabid, growing hysterical when people attempted to pick him off the cadaver. The emerald eyes held reflections of horrible scenes as he spoke those pivotal words.
"He's back—Voldemort's back." And he howled at the injustice of it all. He couldn't! Not yet! He could not burden this child with that which had burdened him his whole life… He would not watch this boy go through the same things he had…
"I want to die! I want to die! Make it stop, make it stop, I want to die!"
He drank the promised cure.
The boy whom he had doomed to endure so many hardships stood erectly before him, traces of salty tears still lingering on his pale cheeks. The lightning-bolt scar was raw and red from his close contact with the Dark Lord. His breathing harsh, his eyes blazed with a fury that had already been consummated through the destruction of many valuable possessions, but it was not over. This boy was tired; he wanted it all to end. Albus could sympathize.
"THEN I DON'T WANT TO BE HUMAN!"
Oh, how he had failed him… He'd been trying so hard to make this boy's life different from how his own had been… and he had failed most miserably.
"KILL ME!"
Every single memory from his upbringing to his observations of the newest prophecy-child's upbringing collided, and it was too much to take—the guilt—every emotion possible barraged his broken will. He could not take it. He physically collapsed.
Perhaps he was being granted the favor he had asked.
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. None of the excerpts from HBP and OotP are mine. Obviously! Unless… no, that's a paradox.
A/N: This just sprung upon me very late last night. After all, we've not heard much about Dumbledore's childhood-- he could have been a child of prophecy for all we know! And for anyone lost—this is the part when Harry and Dumbledore go on the expedition to retrieve the pseudo-Horcrux. You know, the part with the potion.
The potion stimulated memory cells—particularly memory cells that would make the drinker feel regret (as Voldemort does not love, I figured that he doesn't feel much regret nor guilt) which, in return, causes such great emotional turmoil and, as aforementioned-- guilt, that the person subconsciously inflicts himself with imagined pain, OR he even transcends the imaginary and creats real harm. Like the fabled stigmata. Yes, I know, I'm a sick human being. I've heard it all before.
Anyway, so that's it! Review!
Rezallia