There is no elegance these days.
(he thought)
There is no elegance or beauty or grace. There is none of the marble-cold impenetrability to magic any more. Maybe there never was. Perhaps I am the last true marble monument of this dying art.
But what about Dumbledore?
Niggle niggle niggle. Be quiet. Dumbledore is talented, but he wraps it up in false madness and Gryffindor goodness and heart and gold and eccentricity. I don't believe Dumbledore was ever truly elegant. I am the last true sorcerer, the only one that matters. The rest have their volume turned down. Dumbledore was an earnest schoolboy, nothing more. I, I, am a god.
That's the troubling matter. Each century, each decade, brings a- a casualness to the art, a sloppiness. The wizarding world is wrapped up in fluttery words and warped timelines and slipping values and pointless traditions. We must move forward, drive on in technique and style, but keep those things without which our existence as sorcerers would be pointless. Yes, traditions of education, of beauty, of worship, of murder and of-
You've stopped. Go on. It's the one thing you strive to keep cold and clean and crimson. Do you really care, though? Go on, let the mask slip. You don't even attend trivial balls and such, only in your younger days, to seduce the stupid lot of them. You know the real reason you're so full of hate. You're hiding it but it's coming, it's rising like bile. So why are you still masquerading? The ball is over, the curtain is closing, the doors are slamming, the circus is moving, the people are running, the lights are going, the darkness is coming-
BLOOD!
(a gryffindor roar rather than a slytherin hiss)
You are nothing but a marble monument to that growing creature you once were. No flesh or blood or bone. You are a parody of what you strove to be. You are-
Marble is cold and clean and white. Marble is strong and impenetrable. Marble monuments are revered and worshipped. I am white marble stained with their scarlet blood. You will not speak to a lord, a king, a god that way. Avada kedavra.
You can't kill a part of your own soul.
Oh, but I can.
The Malfoys were manipulative of the Muggles. They pretended to despise them as the Dark Lord did, but really they used them for their own clinical greed, using them for money, for fashion, for land, for architecture, for art, for music, for theatre, for literature, for sex, for bullying, for cars and entertainment and clarification. The Malfoys used the Muggles as tables, meals and napkins.
The Blacks were contemptuous of the Muggles. They deigned to walk their streets but they scoffed at the ridiculous clothes they wore, especially in the later years of that century, at the tuneless noise they listened to, the greasy food they ate, the dull houses they lived in. Muggles were like monkeys- they were like them, but without the class, style, powers and blood, and monkeys were mildly amusing and repulsing, like Muggles.
And Tom Riddle really did despise them. He despised them for giving him that oily blood that clogged his veins and, he was sure, made him even less powerful than he would have been with a wizard's blood, even better if his mother had made him with his grandfather or uncle. But… No…
He despised them for holding children in that miserable orphanage and not caring what they got up to. He despised them because the adults in the orphanage had pre-destined his future by labelling him a threat because he acted differently… just as he'd labelled the boy and marked him his equal, but he wasn't equal, he was a child… He despised Muggle-lovers like Dumbledore, how could Dumbledore have let him go on like that? Why?
He despised them for-
No. He couldn't remember. It was there, and yet not. That voice was trying to dredge something up from the echoing white recesses of his skull and make him remember and he knew he didn't want to.
He needed to know everything straight away, about everything and everyone, be the best, the top, the cleverest and the most powerful, the most feared-
There was a man from the government visiting the orphanage to check on their health. A tall, vaguely sad looking man with a grey moustache and a cane. He went around every room inspecting the children until he came to Tom's room.
'This is Tom Riddle,' the girl who fetched and carried said. 'He's a bit weird and quiet, a bit funny in the head but… you'll see.'
The man looked straight at Tom and Tom squirmed. Adults never looked at him and he didn't like it. It made him feel vaguely creepy, like there were things crawling around over his skin. 'May I speak to him in private?' the man said to the girl, there were so many, he forgot their faces and remembered their voices…
'All right. I'll shut the door, shall I?'
They were alone. Tom stared at his feet. He knew he should act normal, this man was a doctor and they might lock him up, maybe send him to get shocked, he'd heard about Billy Brewer who couldn't stop screaming and they'd tied him to a chair and zapped him. Or they might cut open his head and take out the bits they didn't like. There were bits of Tom's head he didn't like. Like the jealous part, of the children who'd had parents they'd known and that had loved them before dying tragically. They even had things left from their families. Clothes, books, toys. Trinkets. He took them and wrapped them in a handkerchief and hid them in his bedside drawer and pretended they were his things from his parents. James Smith had found his jack-in-the-box in Tom's room and twisted Tom's arm behind his back and threatened to beat him up. So he'd hurt him quite badly, he didn't know how, but one minute he was incapable of moving, his arm aching, and then James was crumpled up against the wall, not moving, in a heap on the floor. He'd been on floor-scrubbing duty for a week after that. Not so bad compared to the other punishments.
The man's eyes were shining, and it looked like he was going to cry of joy or… something strange and new.
'Are you all right, mister?' he asked, because if one of the girls came back and found the man crying he'd be whacked about the head for sure.
'Yes…' the man breathed. He was staring at Tom.
Tom swallowed.
There's always a reason, isn't there, being pushed onto a train that takes you to stations in the middle of nowhere, up rickety ancient hills and across bridges and water. No one can help what train they get on, and it's up to the driver and conductor to help stop it.
Tom had thought the Hogwarts Express would finally be the train that led him to his true destiny. Oh, you poor child, you came so far and achieved so little.
I achieved more than you will ever! Wait… who are you?
I can be you. I can be Dumbledore. I can be Salazar Slytherin. I can be Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Severus, Bellatrix, your mother, your father, James Smith or Amy or Dennis or that strange man from the government or Hepzibah Smith or Slughorn or all those girls…
Am I dead?
I don't know. Are you?
I know I don't want to be.
Then you're not. It's as simple as that.
It really isn't.
It is.