Theme: Battlefield
Character/s: Tom Riddle Jr/Voldemort, Bellatrix
Prompt: Fall of an empire
Summary: It was the fall of an empire, his empire, but he didn't care. Bellatrix/Voldemort. Oneshot.
Theme, character and prompt given by Slytherin Head.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.
Fall of An Empire
'Nor dread nor hope attend
A dying animal;
A man awaits his end
Dreading and hoping all
Many times he died;
Many times rose again.
A great man in his pride,
Confronting murderous men
Casts derision upon
Suppression of breath;
He knows Death to the bone
Man has created Death.'
Death, by William Butler Yeats
Whoever said that love was blind was right. She loved him, and would follow to him to the end of the world and back. She wouldn't, couldn't, believe that anything he did was wrong. In her eyes, he was perfect. She loved him more than she had ever loved before. He didn't believe in love, and as his follower, she tried not to believe either, but how could she not, when her love for him was her only reason for living?
Her husband knew that she loved him. He had yelled, shouted, and once even hit her, but that was nothing. She was in love, and no one could fish her out of it. She had never cared for Rodolphus Lestrange, and she never would.
People said that she was mad. She laughed, and thought that love was mad.
She was loyal, faithful and loving, she had all the qualities that her enemies valued so much, but they overlooked that because she loved the wrong person.
Time slowed. He saw as the spell hit her in the chest, green sparks illuminating Bellatrix's surprised expression. He saw the vindictive look on the blood traitor's face as she fell. And then he heard as screams ripped out of him seemingly of their own accord, because she was dead, and she would never look at him with that look of hers that said that he was the only thing in her world.
He blasted his three opponents away, for him there only was Molly Weasley, the killer of his best lieutenant. He raised his wand to commit that evil act of murder as he had done countless times that night, but this time he was stopped by a black-haired child that had been hiding behind his invisibility cloak.
For the first time he felt as if everything was surreal, as if he was a spectator watching the events from far away. Because it couldn't be happening – she couldn't be dead. But she was.
He watched emotionlessly as it all unfolded, as another of his most trusted followers turned out to be a traitor. It just proved that he could trust no one, as all of them left him in the end, as his mother had in the very beginning. Love had no power, because love had not kept her alive when it mattered, had it?
He accepted that his empire was crumbling. His great vision, the dream that he had killed for, was not going to come true. The fall of his empire was staring him in the face, but he didn't care anymore.
He blocked those emotions, those feelings of immense guilt, sorrow, and now paralysing fear, locked them up in his black, shrivelled heart. He looked around at the school hall that was now a battlefield. He saw the dishevelled faces of the defenders of Hogwarts still full of hope, and the dead bodies of his Death Eaters sprawled around the hall, strangely peaceful in death. He finds himself wondering how they had found peace, after all the heinous crimes they had committed under his leadership.
If they could find peace…could he?
'Daddy?'
Brown eyes gazed up beguilingly at her father, who sighed and cast an exasperated look at a woman with brown curls and her red-haired husband.
'What is it this time, Lily?' asked Harry, softening when he saw his daughter. He picked her up and set her down on his knee, bouncing her up and down so that she giggled and squealed. Hermione smiled at the little girl.
Lily twisted around. 'Can you tell me about the Voldemort guy again?'
Albus looked up from the newspaper that he had been doodling on. 'Voldemort was the bad guy in the war, right Dad?'
Harry sighed. 'Yes, he was. Now play with Hugo and be a good girl.'
'But why was he bad, Daddy?' Lily asked, twirling her hair around her finger. 'Why? Auntie Hermione said that there was a reason for everything, so why was Voldemort bad?'
Hermione leaned forward. 'Voldemort didn't have a nice mother and father like you do, darling. Because his father left his mother when he found out that she was a witch, he thought that everyone who wasn't magic was not as good as he was.'
'Did he know he was being bad?'
'Of course he did!' exclaimed Ron. 'He just didn't care, the bast-
'No, he thought that what he was doing was right,' cut in Hermione, glaring at her husband. She hissed at him, 'Watch your language around the children!'
'Then why didn't anybody tell him that he was wrong?' Lily asked, a confused expression on her delicate face.
'He didn't believe anyone, honey,' said Harry. 'He thought that he was the only right one.'
'Oh,' said Lily, chewing her hair thoughtfully. 'Why did he kill people?'
'We don't know,' said Harry, thinking of a certain prankster who would never laugh again. 'He was just bad. Now run off, Lily.'
She obediently jumped down from her father's knee and ran out of the room, the sounds of her footsteps fading.
'Maybe he was just angry at his father for leaving him,' said Albus quietly. Startled, Harry glanced at his youngest son. Once again, Albus' green eyes seemed endless, as if all the world's wisdom was reflected in its emerald depths.