Authors note: Hello lovlies! I haven't written for a long time and I was sad to go over my old work and find that I was a poor writer lacking much of what I hope I have today. This is the first piece in my Voldemort series that I will be working on a lot over the next few months. Enjoy! [:
Disclaimer: The amazing Harry Potter Universe belongs only to the great and inspiring J.K Rowling! I profit nothing and I own nothing that you recognize. My imagination only builds off of hers and these stories mean no harm- they are only for the simple entertainment of others. Any infringement of rights is purely unintentional.
"Always love your enemies"
Within love there waits a saving hope and from that hope the worst of us can find our redemption.
The soul is a fragile thing. Like glass, once you damage it you cannot stop the splintering. The smallest touch, a shudder of the earth, the resounding impact of a battle… anything can break it. Sometimes, the shattered pieces are so small you cannot see them. The sharp slivers are left hiding until the unsuspecting victim is already bleeding. This, I think, is the only way I can explain the return of one of the Darkest Wizards of all time. His soul was fragile even before he tore it apart and because fate is both cruel and misunderstood, his second death was not death at all. Just as a soul is like glass, a horcrux is like the ancient Greek Lernaean Hydra and every time one head is cut of two grow in its place.
The funny thing is, I had every right to fear him. Hate him, even... Though every fiber of my being rebels that thought. I was raised to sympathize, emphasize, and keep an open mind and an open heart. I could hate everything he had done, and I did, but how could I hate somebody I didn't know or even understand? Maybe it was a flaw in my logic... in my character. Isn't someone who's good supposed to despise somebody who isn't?
I suppose that's just it though, how can we really and truely determine if a person is good? I've never believed a person can be defined by their actions, I think they can only be defined by their thoughts, their feelings, and their intentions. You can know someone has done something terrible and when it impacts you, you can choose to hate them... but no matter how terrible what they did was you- just by knowing they've done it- cannot understand what was behind it.
There is an endless amount of feelings, thoughts, intentions, consequences, and reasons on top of fears and hopes on top of a past and a future, and this whole pile of humanity is hiding behind every single action we've ever made and ever will make. We can't ever pretend to understand what it took for somebody to do anything; we don't know the deepest lines of their story or what words are added to it with every move.
When I looked at the surface of his story, the little bits that told me only of a far perspective on his life, I saw a little boy who had never known love and who in his fear, was just as human as any of us. Maybe I'm not the only one who could see this. The third Wizarding War has not yet taken that from us all- the hope that maybe... Just maybe, there is hope for even the worst of us. In that way, our last resort was a hopeless hope for hope.
But you see, time travel is not taken lightly. It is a long walk and every step is littered with camouflaged butterflies under your foot like muggle mines. We've been fighting for six years now and it really is our last and worst chance at survival and redemption. There is little difference now between our side and his; we'd all lost sight of what we're fighting for and I had nothing left.
So yes, I had every right to fear and to hate Tom Riddle... But I didn't. This may make me the worst person for an entire world to rely on, but then again… it may have made me perfect. Perfect, because I was not sent back to kill him. I was sent to save him.