Prologue
He didn't deserve it; it's why he didn't chase it. Men, he believed, like him didn't deserve a happy fulfilled life. Didn't deserve to have kids, friends, and family. They deserved what life threw at them, scornful looks, scathing comments, and the hatred of everyone. No matter what the heart wanted, no matter what his heart wanted, he threw away his life for them, an not one of them said thank-you, not one acknowledged what he had done, because what he did wasn't likable, it was sin. And he didn't like himself for it. Not even the bumbling Headmaster and his twinkling blue eyes that gazed with sorrow in his direction could make him believe he deserved to be happy. He was darker then the clothes he wore, his heart even darker. His soul destroyed.
The world hated him, his world loathed him. After the death of Albus Dumbledore, which was by his own hand, he knew more then anything happiness was not to be apart of his life. That one act in and of itself, settled his fate. He tore apart a family, a family at one point who might have accepted him, but by the heated looks and the foul words that presented death slipped passed sneering lips, he would say that, no, no longer was he accepted. He was alone, and he couldn't even blame the man who did it. Albus Dumbledore, had been his friend, had saved him, and in the end ruined him. And yet, he didn't blame the old man who he looked up to as the father he never had – since his father was lacking in the niceties department. No, he couldn't blame Albus for this, he himself was to blame, because he was the one who pointed his wand, uttered the killing curse, and deceived everyone.
Lies, his world had become built on them. Faking his death was a lie, but a necessary one. Negini's bite wasn't fatal. He asked the snake to attack him. What no one realized was that he was the heir of Slytherin and not Voldemort. Voldemort was one of those descended members of the line, not a direct link to Salazar himself. He was a Parselmouth. No one knew, not even Albus Dumbledore. And so it began. His lies, his cheating death, when no one wanted him alive. Negini did her part and he would miss the snake, there was no way a wizard would let the beast live, not when it was a possible Horcrux. It was thanks to her, he lived. And he would live. Not in happiness. Far from happiness. He'd live in guilt, in anger, sadness, and sore acceptance of the things life handed him.
Staring into the green eyes of the boy-who-lived, he gave up the one thing he had held onto for the last twenty years. His love for the boy's mother and his memories of her, all the emotional attachment that went with it; He was far from empty. He felt almost free, of her at least, but never from the happenings after her. He finished the last of his plan. He gave up his world. He gave up his life, to free them from his presence. He'd leave, he wouldn't stay. He'd disappear and never be seen by the people who once knew who he was. He never stayed for the end of the war, he was long gone by the time Harry Potter gave Voldemort the finishing blow. He never heard the sorrows of regret that shattered the hearts of the Hogwarts staff as the Golden Boy sprouted his life to the world. No he gave up his world, he gave up his magic, he gave up his wand and he disappeared.
He threw away his life for a second chance he knew he didn't deserve; he believed he didn't deserve it, so he didn't chase happiness. No, he lived a miserable, ignorant life away from wizarding Britain. He lived hidden in his grief from the British Isles itself, he survived on his will power alone in the dingy back roads of America, he lived for those he's raped, for those he's beaten, for those he's murdered in cold blood, he lived for there demise in Athens, Maine. He simply lived, soullessly, for all that he was and he prayed that one-day he'd be forgiven for his past transgressions. But he doubted.
He didn't deserve it, so he didn't chase it. Men, he believed like him, didn't deserve a happy fulfilled life.