Voldemort lay in his father's bed, his body heavy with guilt. He had no guilt about being here, in his filthy muggle father's house. No, it was the dreams that haunted him. The girl.
At first, he had wondered if it was Lily Potter that visited him in his dreams, but the girl's voice was younger and the accusations didn't fit.
"What about the Chamber of Secrets?" he whispered into the darkness. Fifty years had gone by since he had opened it. But it was not that horrid Hufflepuff girl that haunted him either.
The girl's face was foreign to him. He was sure he had not killed her, though names and faces did seem to blend together after you've caused a certain number of deaths. But he was sure no one had ever known about his diary except for Lucius, the fool.
Her hair. That hair that rippled in waves like blood. It choked him in his sleep. Accusing fingers pointed at him. "It was you. You made me do it. It was you, Tom Riddle."
"Don't be ridiculous," he said to the ceiling. "I did it alone." He was forever alone.
"You used me." Her hair wound around his throat, squeezing tighter.
"I've used a lot of people. What makes you any different?"
"You told me you loved me. You lied to me."
Guilt raked across his heart. "No." But her face. He was sure now, as his dream went on, that he had never seen her before. So why did her face seem so familiar, like one belonging to an old friend's who you trampled on your way to glory? A part of his mind registered that she was silently crying. Something else shot through his heart. He reached towards her, burying his hand in her hair. It shone against his white hand.
"Like blood on snow. Like something that tainted purity and innocence." The girl withdrew from him, releasing him from her grasp. "You didn't lie to me?" she asked quietly. Voldemort swallowed hard. The smile that was playing around her lips sent a pleasant shudder through his body.
"Do you love me?" Why did the answer to that question seem so important to him?
"No." She smiled triumphantly. "I loved Tom Riddle, but he died long ago. You murdered him."
Voldemort woke up from the dream, feeling empty. Perhaps, he wondered, he had always felt that way. It wasn't until now, though, that he felt like he had lost something important. He rose to his feet, nudging Nagini out of the way with a long, pale foot when she slithered towards him. He stared into the smudged mirror over the dresser, silent. His eyes! How horrible they looked against that ghastly skin! 'Like blood on snow.' What had he done to himself? Why had he done it? His reasons no longer seemed good enough to excuse that hideousness.
He drew back his spider-like hand and smashed the mirror. The blood flowing from his shredded hand only enticed him further. He walked through the house, smashing every mirror. The one in the parlor, the ones in the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the attic... The more he smashed, the further he could escape from that hideous face. Those eyes that mocked him. That monster that stared back at him.
Voldemort laughed madly, throwing his grandmother's pocket mirror down the stairs. When the mirrors were all destroyed, he stood in the hallway, panting, transfixed by his own blood. It did not matter that it was tainted with a muggle's blood. It was still beautiful. He shivered at the thought that anything could be beautiful when seen through those horrible eyes.
He descended the stairs slowly, satisfied by the dripping sound of his blood. He kept walking as he reached level ground, right out the front door, through the graveyard, and out of the gates, heading in the direction of Ottery St. Catchpole. It did not matter how much he bled. He was sure that the girl at the end of his journey could heal him.
And in the morning, the Death Eaters will find his snake with her yellow throat slit open, the pools of tainted blood, and a myriad of shattered glass. But none of it matters to him anymore. All that matters is that she'll believe him when he tells her he loves her.