Pain of the Unfeeling

The morning of May 2nd, 2098, dawned with an air of boredom, as if nothing special had happened, really, while all over Britain, celebrations of the 100th anniversary of Lord Voldemort's victory over the misled teenage vigilante Harry Potter started.

And Lord Voldemort was bored. The past century had witnessed kingdoms rise and fall, presidencies regretted and re-elected, wars feared and fared - one greater than all that had come before, called the Big Third - but none of that had touched Wizarding Britain, none of that had influenced his reign, none of that had moved Lord Voldemort, for Lord Voldemort was unmoved, unmoving, stagnant.

His rule was stagnant.

That night, a hundred years past today, the wizarding populace of the United Kingdom had yielded to his reign. He had instantly been made Minister of Magic, but the moment he had achieved total power, it had bored him to death.

Only - there was one thing Lord Voldemort was incapable of doing: die.

These days, his life consisted solely of bureaucracy, fighting paper instead of wizards, fighting regulations instead of ideals. And even when he did fight bureaucracy, there was no real fight in that, for no one dared to contradict him, all-mighty ruler of Wizarding Britain that he was.

Bureaucracy was a pain in the arse, but it left Lord Voldemort unfeeling as ever. There had been times, he knew, when he was still able to feel things, to experience life, but that was a long time past. The last time he had felt something, really felt something, was the day Harry Potter had fallen at his wand.

Pain.

Immeasurable, excruciating, painful pain. The kind of pain that you feel when a piece of your soul dies.

Lord Voldemort had not known that Harry Potter had possessed a miniscule piece of his soul, but killing the boy had made that little matter crystal clear. Not that there had been anything to be done against that, but the pain -

These days, where nothing ever happened anymore, Lord Voldemort almost longed for that pain.

"Nagini."

The word had been a mere whisper, but his familiar understood it to be the command that it was. Slithering from under his bed where she had been resting, the huge snake made her way up to the cushion upon which her master rested. She knew what he wanted.

In the beginnings, she had resisted him, not that it had done her any good. That resistance had been trained out of her fast enough, though, and she had begun doing as she was bid, no matter how much she hated it.

Lord Voldemort had hated it in the beginning, as well. That had been the whole appeal of the measure - feeling something, even if only hate. With all of Wizarding Britain yielding to his terror, there was no excitement to be had any more, no bloodlust to be satisfied, no pain that came with the conquest. But there had to be other ways to feel pain, surely, and Nagini helped him with those.

He saw the question in her eyes and offered up his wrist. The giant snake did not hesitate to thrust her fangs into his white skin.

There had been a thrill to be had in this, this self-hurt, if one wanted to call it that - for what was Nagini if not a mere extension of Lord Voldemort? With no one left who could still hurt him, the only victory to be gained was over himself, Lord Voldemort knew, and battle he did. Playing one piece of his soul against another, making them battle and hurt each other - there used to be pain in that. These days, the holes Nagini's fangs tore into his skin barely fazed him, and the pain was nothing but a sting, old and familiar as his familiar herself.

Still, it was at least some measure of pain, and it was a way to feel again. There was a future to be found in the hurt. It could make him forget for a while, forget about the stagnation in his politics, the numbness in his life, the fact that he existed without a purpose, just biding his time while his rule was everlasting. The only blood Lord Voldemort could spill these days was his own. He spilled it anyway, hoping to forget about his own miserable pedigree, half legend, half dirt; hoping to forget about the blood of the people he had killed to live forever, for they had been lesser than him, yet he had needed them to secure his future; hoping to forget about the encounters with death he had gone through to reach immortality.

But he remembered. Everything. Every little thing he remembered: how death had allowed him to escape, how the measures he had gone to in order to prevent his own death had scarred him, had hurt him - every little thing reminded him of death, and there was no peace to be had from those constant thoughts, those plentiful memories.

His immortality was tainted by the ever-present company of death.

A/N: This little story has been in my mind for a few weeks now, and I've decided to sit down today and write the first installment. There will be two or three chapters after this, in similar length, I assume. This story was inspired by Johnny Cash's version of the song "Hurt". This chapter deals with the first verse of the song, and if you read the lyrics, you will find many similarities in here. I hope you enjoyed this. Please let me know your thoughts, if you will. I do so appreciate hearing them. :)