Harry Potter and the Tomb of Time
Chapter 1: Succession
Darkness poured forth from a small window at the end of the room. Outside the window was a dark night, covered completely in ominous clouds. Rain was coming down in torrents as if each droplet was a soldier and the ground an impenetrable fortress. The darkness climbed the wall, oozed through the window and sinuously entwined the aged furniture in the room, slowly erasing each chair, dissolving each table, consuming every piece of jewelry. It meticulously encircled a dresser, slowly removing each and every piece of dust, deleting the cracked mirror, and removing the lamp from existence, before finally destroying the dresser itself, shelf by shelf. The darkness was not a normal darkness. It was like molasses, flooding in slow motion into the room, climbing up shelves and deleting things from the world. It was almost as if starting here and expanding outwards was the end of the time.
Suddenly, the dust stirred, and a weak light shone into the room on the side opposite the window. One would almost expect the darkness to reflect this light there was so much substance to the black ooze, but in there was only nothingness. A door creaked ominously open. The shadow of a figure crossed the light. The figure seemed small, almost skeletal, with a hunched back. As the figure stepped into the light, one could notice tattered, bloodstained clothes hung loosely about him. The man was obviously malnourished and walked with a limp. Weakly, he collapsed to the ground.
The darkness seemed almost afraid of the man. It moved around him, but did not get within a short radius of him. At one point, it cautiously extended a tendril of blackness towards him, and seemed to pull it back, as if it was in pain.
"So, Voldemort, you've returned?" croaked the old man.
A dark figure emerged from the blackness, his shape forming and the colors fading into existence later. This man, if one could call it so, was tall and gaunt and had a face like a snake, a pure, skull-like white and red slits for eyes. The body was cloaked in a black cape. When he spoke, his voice was high-pitched and cold.
"Yes," the figure said in an almost amused way.
The man on the floor seemed to be disturbed by the true manifestation of Voldemort, but he seemed to know that the dark lord could do nothing to him.
"Yet, you are still afraid of me?"
"You will die in a few hours time. There is little you can do to stop me."
"Yet, as I may die, another will live. I have named a successor."
The dark figure at first looked rather unsteady upon hearing this, but it was only a slight waver. When he spoke next, his voice was, if possible, even colder.
"Dumbledore, yes?"
"I cannot say."
"That old fool is nothing to me."
"I heard that last time the two of you met, he had the upper hand."
There was another silence. Now his words were a sharp ice, tearing to shreds the ears of any listener.
"My powers have not yet fully awakened, and he had help. Once the tomb is opened, there is nothing that can stand in my way."
The figure let out a cold laugh. The old man coughed feebly and two spots of blood fell onto the ancient wood floor.
"Look at yourself," the figure said again, and amused sort of malice dripping through his voice, "You are pitiful and weak. You lie on the floor coughing up blood. A child could kill you."
Although he was dying, the man seemed to have an inextinguishable spark of defiance in his eyes. He raised his head off the floor and gathered the strength to speak in a voice barely above a whisper.
"Yet, you, the most powerful wizard in the world, cannot."
The figure's eyes glowed with anger, and he appeared to be straining himself to keep from leaving his pedestal and leaping across the darkness to kill the man.
"Why do you still defy me so? Even on your deathbed!"
The old man, however, seemed too weak to speak. He lay his head down, and made a feeble attempt at gesturing with his hand. He took a few labored breaths and then went still. Then, something very curious happened. His body seemed to deteriorate in freeze-frame motion. In a matter of seconds, his flesh seemed to fall apart sickeningly, mold grew over his bones, giving them a green and grassy shimmer. The mold and the bones together soon turned gray. A few seconds later, the bones themselves deteriorated, and turned to a pile of grey dust. The dust stayed still for a moment, and then slowly blew away, scattering itself over the oozing darkness and out the window.
A strange sort of satisfied smile twisted the whitened face of the dark figure. He began to melt back into the darkness, emitting a high, cruel laugh. The last few particles of dust flew out into the night, up into the clouded sky. The darkness slowly began to recede out the window leaving nothing but charred wood in its wake. Far away, in Little Whinging, Surrey, England, a boy by the name of Harry Potter awoke, a pain tearing apart his head.