Immortal Dark Lord?
By Opopanax
AN: Very very brief oneshot, in which I find yet another thing in the Potterverse to complain about, and our favorite dark lord finds something to worry about.
It was tonight.
The most feared dark lord in a century, Formerly known as Tom Riddle, now called Lord Voldemort, Apparated silently into the outskirts of a small village called Godric's Hollow on Halloween. Tonight he would eliminate his final thrust to power, the final threat to his growing ascension, named in prophecy, named by fate.
It had been a very long crusade, his rise to power. Nothing more than an obscure orphan from London, Tom Riddle quickly rose through the hierarchy of Slytherin House at Hogwarts, taking on the name of Lord Voldemort, rallying the purebloods to his cause. By the 1970's, his domination of the Wizarding world was well under way.
Now, he was on his way to eliminate the last threat to his power. A new and promising young Death Eater by the name of Severus Snape had overheard part of a prophecy in the Hog's Head pub in Hogsmeade, before getting tossed out on his ear by the proprietor. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies. Lord Voldemort didn't manage to hear the rest, unfortunately. Perhaps he should've waited, but he was so close to finishing his rise. The Ministry of Magic was almost done for, one final thrust and it would be in his hands and he could go about the purification of the world.
Voldemort sneered under his hood at the decorations in the town and the silly costumes the filthy Muggle children were wearing. Fools, he thought, if only they knew.
Dead leaves crunched under his boots as he glided up the high street of the town, listening to the stupid Muggles singing in the pub and the random knocks on house doors as the children went about, collecting candy. He could see the lights of the house he was looking for as he concentrated on the secret his spy had given them. Fools, he thought again, placing their trust in the wrong person. True Gryffindors, the whole lot of them.
Voldemort turned up the path and opened the gate with a lazy flip of his wand and slithered up to the front door. Another lazy flip of his wand and the door blasted off it's hinges and slammed into the floor, cracking into pieces.
"Lily! It's him! Take Harry and go, I'll hold him off!" James Potter hollered. There was the quick patter of light footsteps and a baby's surprised squeak.
Voldemort laughed a high laugh. "Really, Potter? you're going to hold me off? What on earth do you think you could possibly do to oppose Lord Voldemort? Avada Kedavra!" And just like that, James Potter was dead, lying unmarked and still on the living room floor.
Voldemort chuckled mirthlessly and stepped into the house. He could hear frantic footsteps upstairs, the bang of a door, and the scraping of furniture. Silly mudblood, he thought to himself. As if barricading the door would help.
Voldemort stepped over Potter's body and ambled casually up the stairs, twirling his yew and phoenix wand in his fingers. He was enjoying himself immensely. Tomorrow all the world would know. They would know that not even prophecy could stand in the way of Lord Voldemort.
On the right side of the hallway, a brightly painted door was firmly shut against him. There was not a sound behind it. Voldemort flipped his wand idly and the door, and all the furniture barricaded against it, blasted to pieces. Stepping casually through the debris, Voldemort entered the nursery.
Lily Potter was standing in front of the crib, arms spread wide, blocking her baby from sight. Her red hair fanned out behind her, her green eyes flashing pleadingly up at him.
"Stand aside, girl," Voldemort hissed, raising his wand. "You need not die this night."
"Please, not Harry," Lily cried, spreading her arms a little wider as if that would help. "Kill me instead, please, not Harry!"
"Stand aside, you silly girl," Voldemort cried, exasperated. Severus had requested her life be spared, and, feeling particularly generous, Voldemort agreed. But she would still die if she insisted on standing in the way.
"Take me instead, I'll do anything, just please, don't kill Harry!"
Voldemort sighed, as if dealing with a particularly stubborn child. "Very well, mudblood, as you wish. Avada Kedavra!"
Lily Potter slumped lifelessly to the floor. Voldemort ignored her and moved to stand in front of the crib.
The little baby stood shakily in it, holding on to the railing, the same green eyes as his mother's meeting Voldemort's red ones.
"So, Harry Potter. You are the child of my downfall," Voldemort said musingly, twirling his wand idly in his fingers.
"You hardly seem threatening at all, child. But I suppose I can take no chances. Avada Kedavra!"
As soon as he said the fatal words, Voldemort knew something was wrong. The jet of green light issued from Voldemort's wand, traveling impossibly slowly toward the child's forehead, his green eyes staring at it curiously. Voldemort began to move slowly, oh so slowly, out of the way, but he wasn't fast enough. The green light hit the child, and bounced back off, leaving a small cut shaped like a bolt of lightning. As soon as it hit, time speeded back up again and the green light, now a weird yellow color, zoomed back and slammed straight into Voldemort.
Pain. Agony beyond all imagining. Voldemort's body was blasted to ash, and his soul rose up, a black mist in the cool air of the nursery. The magical backlash slammed into the walls and ceiling, causing them to explode outward in clouds of debris.
As soon as he left his body, Voldemort knew something was wrong. He remembered that ill-fated conversation with Horace Slughorn back in 1943, when he first asked about Horcruxes.
"A Horcrux is the word used for an object in which a person has concealed part of their soul."
"I don't quite understand how that works, though, sir," said Riddle.
"Well, you split your soul, you see," said Slughorn, "and hide part of it in an object outside the body. Then, even if one's body is attacked or destroyed, one cannot die, for part of the soul remains earthbound and undamaged. But of course, existence in such a form..."
Now, here he was, existing as less than a ghost, but something was wrong. He could feel something like a rubber band, from all his Horcruxes, pulling him toward the blackness.
When he made the Horcruxes, he was peripherally aware of them, not in any conscious way, but he could feel them in his subconscious. Because even if you set part of a soul aside in a container, it still remained connected, however tenuously, to the whole. The soul is a living thing, and the splitting of it is an unnatural act, and, as all first year wizards learn, magic has consequences. Now, as he floated in the blackness, they were all pulling at him, in seven directions. And the pull was getting stronger.
As he floated, helpless to do anything, the rubber bands snapped and he felt all his soul fragments come together, and he was blasted, screaming into the blackness of death.
Back in the cottage at Godric's Hollow, little Harry Potter felt a sharp searing pain in his forehead, and a black mist roe from it, screaming to float off through the wall. The cut healed, leaving only a faint lightning bolt shaped scar. Across the country, in a rundown shack outside the village of Little Hangleton, a black mist rose from a tarnished ring, and also floated, screaming into the night. Deep in a Gringotts vault, another black mist floated out of a gold cup embossed with the image of a badger and floated through the wall, wailing. Under the drawing room floor of Malfoy Manor, up in the fabled Room of Requirement in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and in the Black house in London, more black mists rose and joined their originator, never to be seen again. Because HOrcruxes don't really work.
People would begin to start celebrating very soon, all hailing Harry Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived, as the destroyer of Voldemort And Voldemort would never be seen again.
AN: Not the most elegant story, but I have problems with the whole Horcrux concept. If they really do work, where are all the other immortal dark lords? Voldemort can't have been the only one ever to create a Horcrux, and yet you don't see them around. Hmmmm? This isn't really a plot hole, just something I have problems with on a basic level.
Some of you may wonder: Well gee, Opopanax, if you don't like the Horcrux concept so much, why the hell are you using it in your other stories, huh? Huh? Well the actual answer is: because I'm too damn lazy to think of something else. It's one of my character flaws. If something already exists, work with it, rather than try to come up with something else.