Only I Can Live Forever
A wave of enthusiasm and bubbling excitement spilled over the castle walls as students chatted contently to one another during the passing time between classes in the hallways of Hogwarts. The very first trip for Hogsmeade was scheduled for the next day, and although the sun shone brightly through the gleaming stained glass of the castle, a sense of tension lay low underneath the tones of excitement about the next day's trip. It was no coincidence that Headmaster Dippet had scheduled the visit two weeks earlier than what was practiced continuously years before. Word spread in harsh whispers that he had ordered a schoolwide search, so intense that even Aurors from the Ministry of Magic were recruited to investigate. None of the students dared to say the victim's name, as if speaking it would force them all to acknowledge the reality of the danger at Hogwarts.
In the preoccupation with the latest petrified Muggle-born and the strategic scheduling of the Hogsmeade trip, no one cared to notice the boy who was normally charismatic and outgoing silently scribbling in his diary in the tiny benched nook outside of Professor Slughorn's office. Occasionally he would look up, eyes focusing intently at the opposite wall, as if he could sense something the others could not.
The second period of the day began a few minutes later, but the boy did not move, did not even register the fact that the hallways filled minutes before with raucous laughter were suddenly empty. He wrote in the diary intently and quickly, and only he knew the leather bound journal was his only confidant in a castle full of those who would never understand him.
He wrote about Secrets of the Darkest Art, the most highly restricted book in the library that he had easily obtained through a simple Imperius curse on Madame Littlebird. The poor woman was now currently going mad at St. Mungo's, always talking of asphodel flower petals withering to death in the heat of July. However her suffering was worth it, the secrets discovered within the brittle, dusty pages of the forbidden book were far more powerful than he had ever imagined, and he further confirmed the existence of a certain dark magic by tricking that stupid Slughorn into giving him vital information. The boy stiffened his shoulders when he wrote about his next trip to the library, and the moment he discovered that the glorious book had vanished, residing safely in the arms of the headmaster. Yet somehow, he scribbled, there was no way that the oblivious Headmaster Dippet was behind it. His memories flung back to Professor Dumbledore, and he remembered those burning blue eyes always watching him closely, like a hunter tracking a stag through the woods. Unlike the other dim-witted professors at Hogwarts, all Dumbledore needed was one look into his eyes of black pits to see past the perfect student façade he had maintained throughout his years at Hogwarts. Yes, that old Albus was one to be wary of.
His mind had just instructed the pencil to write about Salazar Slytherin's secret chamber when the action was interrupted by a sharp shriek emanating from a nearby classroom. His hand jerked away from the pages, leaving a long blurred ink mark down the pressed paper.
The boy's dark eyes lifted from the ink mess, and his brows furrowed in anger. Suddenly a flash of ragged old robes and black greasy hair flew past him, and he watched as the sobbing mess made her way down the hall, shoes echoing in squeaks again the old stone.
Ah, it was her again. The one Olive Hornby never ceased to make fun of. He grinned. It wasn't because the girl was ugly, because she was. Fat with crooked glasses and red bumps that covered her cheeks. But the girl was a Mudblood, and seeing her weak-blooded body heave in sobs brought a sense of smug satisfaction to his soul.
He turned back to his diary, spirits uplifted after his dark thoughts about Dumbledore. Yet before he could continue his writing, his back stiffened and his ears honed into the sound of a door slamming closed against a wooden frame. Not just any door, the door the girl's bathroom.
This was his chance. He had failed several times before with that fourth-year James Nettle and most recently, first-year Agatha Amaranth. A strength rose up from his chest and he silently recalled the curse listed in the Secrets of the Darkest Art. Opening his eyes, and sure of his knowledge, he reached into his soul, plunged it deep into the depths of Hogwarts, and called her in Parseltongue. His lips shaped words that had been unused since the time of Salazar Slytherin. Within his spirit he felt her awaken, and with a breath of fresh air through her scaled nostrils, she began her way up the copper pipes from the secret lair.
He slammed the diary shut and walked in slow, soft steps towards the double wood doors to the entrance of the bathroom. The sobs of the girl echoed and bounced from the walls, and he heard her retch into the toilet. The boy remembered the Muggle concept of social Darwinism that had been taught during his time in the orphanage, and as stupid and dim-witted as Muggles were, he acknowledged with a grim reluctance that they had generated some logical ideas.
Sensing his scaled companion's presence at the top of her tunnel, he took a deep breath, and burst through the doors into the marbled bathroom. Speed was the key to his success, and while shielding his eyes he felt the monster brush pass his torso as he mumbled instructions in Parseltongue to her underneath his breath.
A squeak emitted from the second stall from the left. "Who's there?" the girl asked in an annoyed voice, sensing a male presence in the exclusively girls bathroom. As the basilisk's head passed by him, the boy opened his eyes and with a flick of the wand and chant of a spell, the ancient old clock on the wall slowed its ticking, and the snake continued her trajectory towards the stall in as if she had been just been revived after being frozen in ice. He knew deep in his soul that this was the moment he had been working towards for weeks. He satisfyingly watched every single slow second, as he would never want to forget the first time he wiped the dirty blood of a Muggle-born from existence.
The door opened and the girl stepped out, one foot slowly in front of the other. Her red, puffy eyes widened as she comprehended the monstrosity in front of her. He watched as her mouth opened in a scream, as her eyes roamed up the long scaled neck of the basilisk. And finally, the moment he had been waiting for. The girl's dark brown eyes met the piercing yellow ones of Death. For one split second, her soul was visible through her widened eyes, and he witnessed the fleeting moment in which she had registered her death. It was a strange look to him, like nothing he had ever seen before. Her eyes, like a film, flicked through surprise, fear, regret, sadness, pain, and finally, acceptance. Suddenly, like being frozen in ice, the cold wave of death swept down her face, freezing the surprised expression in place. It continued down her neck, grabbing hold of her fingers, torso, and knees. Finally, when the wave reached her feet, there was a moment of peace and silence. No water dripped onto tiles, no birds sang outside the castle, no wind wrestled the leaves. He saw her chocolate eyes take in one last image of life as the final breath left her mouth and the skeleton fingers of Death took her away as the eyes clouded over. The frozen, lifeless corpse toppled to the floor with a crash, and to his shock, he found himself unable look at the figure's whitened pupils without feeling… something stir within his chest.
He took a shaky breath, and composed himself before ordering the beast away back to her chamber. Picking up the dropped diary, he carefully laid the journal on top of the chest of the dead girl, and using his wand, plunged it like a stake through the center binding and the cracking ribs of her chest. He knew he had reached the heart when the wand pulsed a black light through the cold body, just as Herpo the Foul had described. With a moment of resolution and a firm hand, he pulled the wand back in a sharp jerk, effectively pulling out the fleshy organ that had bound to his wand. It was one of the most disgusting things he had ever witnessed, fluid dripped off of the muscular heart and stained his diary pages a dark pink.
Is it worth it? The whisper spoke through his mind so quickly it couldn't have been his. You killed her. Is there any part of you that regrets it?
He looked apprehensively at the corpse. He no longer recognized it to have ever belonged to someone living. Was he even human? Was he no better than the monstrous basilisk? As soon as his soul opened to the possibility the mind quickly hardened the soft weakness that had escaped through its defenses. No, he resolved. I am going to be the most powerful wizard that ever lived. I don't care if it takes one pathetic Mudblood to get me there.
In absolute certainty, he lifted the fleshy heart to his lips and drank the salty copper blood that stank with death. He gagged but downed the rest with an even stronger motivation. Spitting out chunks of flesh between his pearly teeth, the boy grabbed the bloody wand and with the power and strength of the darkest evil commanded the curse while pointing the phoenix feather core of his wand at his own beating heart. What he never expected was the pain.
It spread through his entire body before centralizing in his chest. It pulled and tugged on his arteries, his veins, his lungs. He screamed in pure agony while he choked and retched up black fluid. The long fingers that had reached deep inside him and twisted and contorted his chest finally grabbed hold of his heart, and pulled. With breath lost and throat sore, he was silenced as the hand tore a piece of his heart from its beating place and pulled it through layers of muscle, bone, and skin until the dark force broke free of his chest and flew, spiraling like hurricane towards the diary. The soul burrowed itself within the bloodied pages of the journal, darkening and dampening the white paper. With a gasp, he fell to his knees and breath returned to his lungs as the diary gradually lightened to its original color, wiping all traces of writing with it. The boy fell onto the floor, breathing heavily with his cheek pressed up against the cold marble.
After a few minutes, he regained his strength and stood, shockingly finding that the dark magic had removed all traces of blood and black fluid from the floor, and the fleshy heart of the girl had returned back to her chest, with not even a scar marking the ritual. He grasped the edges of the sink basin, and looked at his reflection in the mirror. Something about him was different, he felt… incomplete. His face had retained its same square shape, nose still hooked, lips pursed and eyes narrowed. The physical features had remained the same, but a hole in his chest where the soul had been ripped throbbed and felt raw. Within a couple days, he reminded himself, the pain would cease and the memories of the torn out soul forgotten. An odd sensation tickled his throat. Was he… laughing? Bubbles of amusement escaped his mouth and he felt a deep satisfaction of his act. He laughed at the pettiness of Slughorn who said that the breaking of the soul was a crime, he laughed at the foolish Dumbledore for being too weak to stop him, and he laughed at that filthy Mudblood Myrtle who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He turned towards away from the mirror, still chuckling, and picked up the diary from the floor. An aura of dark life oozed from its pages, and like mother drawn towards her child, he felt attached and protective of it. Closing the diary, he stroked his hand down the front cover where his name stamped in gold sparked like fiery flames. Watching with great awe, he saw the letters form two new words before his widened eyes. He smiled maliciously at new name, the one in which every witch, wizard, and Muggle would know him by. Flipping to the last page in the book, he wrote two last sentences onto the pages before slipping the diary into his book bag.
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT.
AND I HAVE CONQUERED DEATH.