Written for Round 7 of the QLFC. Not thrilled about this fic, but we'll see.
Bertha Jorkins did not deserve what was coming to her.
She was silly, yes, unbearably so. She was not intelligent. She was occasionally malicious when she didn't need to be, and sometimes made up rumors about people for her own gain. She was not going to be missed by many, other than workplace intrigue.
She still did not deserve what Tom Marvolo Riddle was doing to her.
Sometimes he did try to feel pity. Even now, even when his soul was housed in a pitiful excuse for a body, when he was at the lowest, most pathetic point he'd ever been in his life (and ever would be, he knew, for he would get his revenge), he would try to reach within himself and find a place for the pity others had.
There was nothing. A black hole where those emotions should be. This, he knew, was why he was superior to all others, even others wizards. They could feel kindness for its own sake, a sort of diseased sense of goodness coming from helping others. He knew they thought themselves better for it.
As he watched the shell of Bertha Jorkins stare at him, tears leaking from her wide, confused eyes, he thought maybe he did feel something. She reached for him, her fear for her life shining through her broken mind and overpowering any aversion to his twisted half-body. Yes, he felt something.
Disgust.
He killed her easily, and made Wormtail dispose of the body. The little rat was good for things like that. Disposing bodies, cleaning up after him, and, unfortunately, the entire task of keeping his Lord alive. He hated having to entrust his life to the rat, but that was how it had turned out. His greatest fear was that Wormtail would mess up and cause him to be forced back into the darkness, into becoming only a spirit of hate of malice again.
He could not allow that to happen. Yet, with Wormtail, it wasn't in his control. He hated this like he hated so much, hated that it was the sniveling Peter Pettigrew that had come to him and not one of his favorites, not one of the Death Eaters he'd had so much faith in. Malfoy, Crabbe, Goyle, MacNair, Yaxley…where were they? Had they never searched? There would be punishment indeed if- when- he was brought back to power.
At least now he knew not all of his servants had abandoned him. Crouch, that little boy who had proven much more of himself than the Dark Lord had thought capable, was faithful, even to the point of being imprisoned within his own home by his father. Cruelty came in many forms, on both sides, and the Dark Lord was capably of seeing it in others. Bartemius Crouch Senior was a cruel man.
There was so much that could go wrong. When these thoughts hit him, he tried to think back to happier times. There were people who thought he was incapable of simple things such as this- but these people didn't understand him, didn't understand that a lack of compassion was not equal to a complete lack of emotion. He was hard-pressed to care what they thought.
Happier times- when the Wizarding World was under his heel, when he was in control of the hearts and minds of almost every wizard and even the Muggles who didn't know him feared him in some inner, primal part of themselves. He thought of this time and could only think of bringing this time back, the urge to rule overwhelming him and bring the ache back, the ache that came from something missing, the one he knew could only be filled by power.
So he thought of a different time, ignoring the aches and pains of his imperfect, warped body and thinking back to when he was young, when his powers were hidden and his motives unknown. When Muggles could bump him in the street and get away with only a nod and a mumbled apology, as though they were not lesser beings he could destroy in an instant. When other wizards could still hold a conversation with him without cringing in fear, a reaction he worked long and hard to get.
These were not satisfying memories either. His recollection of this time of his life, the majority of his young adulthood, was filled with an insatiable longing, a want and need to be better, stronger, deathless. There was no happiness there, only impatience.
He went back farther, determined to find memories filled with happiness. And then, he found it.
Hogwarts.
He should have known.
The realization filled him with a kind of bitterness he couldn't identify, which made him angry. He sent Wormtail scuttling with a snarl and an insult and tried to analyze himself. It didn't work, which made him angrier. He decided to chalk it up to his body, the wrinkled, grotesque form he must inhabit until his plans came to fruition.
He'd been happiest at Hogwarts. Of course he had been. That was why it would be the first place he went for. It had to be his, so he could control it. When Hogwarts was his, he would walk the stairs of Hogwarts for the first time in decades. He would climb to the top of the Astronomy Tower and look at the stars. Maybe he'd even be Headmaster.
After he crushed everyone. After the Ministry of Magic was destroyed and Albus Dumbledore was dead and he had killed Harry Potter and broken every one of his friends' lives into tiny little pieces. Then, he would have Hogwarts. Then, he would live. Then, maybe the black void in his heart he knew power- only power, he told himself- could fill would finally be at peace.