Pieces of My Soul
Prologue
No one questions me. This is highly irritating. Like all mortals, I am not infallible, so my plans are never perfect. Some backfire completely, some provide unforeseen opportunities. Despite this, not one of them questions me or my new plans.
Fear.
That's why. They don't want to be put under Cruciatus for speaking out against my plans. Last time someone did, I was young, fool-hardy, and never believing my plans were not perfect. I blamed 'Spies' for why my plans don't work. And crucio'd everyone who could have been responsible for flaws in the plans.
But now, I am older, wiser, but not clever enough, to predict reliably enough how children whom I do not know will react in these, situations I put them in.
Already I have learned the lesson of patience. I had cast it aside, and the result of that decision was the casting aside of my physical being, left to wander the world as a spirit, being without form, only able to inhabit the willing intelligent creatures and humans for long periods of time, relying on servants and followers to protect me, unable to protect myself.
In my youth I made the mistake of trusting pieces of my soul to valuable objects I greatly desired, and sending them off to places I had been to in my childhood and near-adulthood. These mistakes have came to metaphorically bite me in the derrière.
I stand in the meeting room of a temporary headquarters. We always move around, it helps evade the highly skilled Aurors. In front of me my inner circle are stood milling, discussing things. This is the only time I allow them to talk, just before scheduled meetings. It allows me to hear parts of conversation to prepare myself for the meetings. Wormtail is skulking in the corner, as he always does, but talking rather animatedly with one of the new Inner Circle members, Daniel Radcliffe, I believe. He has been useful for staged fights in muggle towns. He looks so much like Harry Potter, we have used it once or twice to stage fights, and demoralise Britain as their saviour 'looses' again to me, retreating injured.
It is time for the meeting so I do what I always do to start it. I tap along the link to their dark marks, and warm them up so they know to be quiet.
"Greetings, My friends. Soon, we shall embark on my plan to finally kill that old fool Dumbledore, and his spy, Snape. But first, your reports on each of your progress."
I give them a chance to speak, give reasons why theyre behind schedule, the usual drivel that they speak. When one is more behind schedule then I like, I crucio him once, before giving him the most disgusting task I have to give: cleaning the headquarters before we leave. I do not have a house elf for this very reason.
The last person is this Radcliffe fellow's report. He is one of the most promising death eaters here, and has not even been behind schedule once since coming into my service.
"My Lord. I do not bring good news." He tells me. He does not shake in fear however. He has yet to have faltered to earn the Crucio.
"Yes, Radcliffe? What is it?"
"I have been unable to find a Potions Master who is as capable as Snape was., but is far more trustworthy."
"How many Masters have you investigated, Radcliffe?"
Okay, there's a pause. He never pauses before giving some bad news. Now I'm interested with his report. "None, My Lord."
Okay, I'm pissed off. "Why, Radcliffe?" I make sure to tinge my voice with anger, but still keep my voice deceptively calm.
"I have been embarking on my own project, My Lord. One I hope you will like very much."
"Tell me, and if I find merit, I shall overlook the use of the Cruciatus, on this occasion."
He tells me the plan. I am impressed. It is very like my own, but far better. Radcliffe may be young but he seems to know his strategy.
-
Anger. That's all I feel right now. Radcliffe's plan backfired bigstyle. The Potter boy was supposed to be at Hogwarts, and Dumbledore in Little Whinging, specifically, Privet Drive.
Instead, Potter was there, and Dumbledore had somehow gotten Radcliffe away from his post a few streets from him, Allowing Potter to Put me into a stalemate by locking our wands again. He is more confident that he will win this time, it seems. I see him distractedly pick up a rope. Surely, he does not expect to win with a rope? Yes…
I can't blame him when I realise what the rope is attached to. He yanks on the rope allowing a great metal, block, to fall from the sky, clearly it had been hidden by either an Invisibility ward or maybe even a Fidelius Charm, and upon leaving the warded area, becoming visible to me…
I sidestep, but it changes its fall to continue on directly above me. Clever. I apparate away, thinking whatever charm had been used would be broken then… only to narrowly avoid the last part of the fall of the block. It had appeared above me where I was now… How Potter managed this I will never know.
My Followers are suspicious but fear to tell me about what. I know why, They suspect a spy in the Inner Circle. It does not cross my mind who the spy may be.
-
As I walk to my sleeping chambers, I feel the effect of a spell hit me, and I feel like something I had been missing was given back. I use spells to check what it was after trying to find the source of this spell, but to no avail.
Several times this week, it had happened. This was the 6th time.
-
Finaly, a plan that worked.
Potter is stood before me, on his knees writhing in pain from my Crucio. He has managed to make it through an hour of this, And I begin to wonder how he managed to get such a threshold for pain, most of my followers, whom have suffered many injuries in their life, can not stand 5 seconds under my Crucio, never mind an hour.
I lift the curse.
"Harry, Join me. You will never feel pain again, I promise you, but only if you join me."
Harry grins, a familiar grin at that. And in a voice I find disturbingly familiar. "Too late to make such a promise Voldie." He grabs his left sleeve and pulls it up, revealing a dark mark. "Remember that prophecy from a few years ago? You tried to get it but it broke during the fight between me and your death munchers."
I nod, "No one except the fool Dumbledore know it."
"Wrong. He told me that night. Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal" He mockingly said, pointing to both his dark mark and the scar. "But he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and The Dark Lord must die at the hand of the chosen one, for neither can live while the other survives."
I look at him. My low-level Legilimency through both our link and through normal means show he isn't lying. He pulls out a wand, and casts a curse I am very familiar with. It is the same curse, or rather, healing spell, I use to remove enough Dark Arts Addiction to make my followers effective. Bellatrix had it cast on her twice to make her more effective in a fight.
I feel the effects of the spell, but it is far more pronounced then how my followers had described it. A moment later, I look at my hands. They're… Human, again. He touch my face, and my nose is back. I conjure a mirror and my face is how it was when I was but 17 and fresh out of Hogwarts.
I see Lucius Malfoy recognise me as a face he saw once. I see he realised what I am too. "You're Tom Riddle, Half-Blood?!"
I nod. I'm.. Not angry, oddly enough. I know I should be but. I also feel something I had never before felt. But I can name it very well. Shame.
"I also heard another Prophecy, one given directly to me. The second prophecy told to me by who most believe to be a fake." Harry says, as his form morphs into the familiar face of Daniel Radcliffe. Metamorph, so that's how he successfully infiltrated my inner circle. "It explained how you can die but still be alive. He who denies Heritage and commits crimes against Nature, shall be made whole again. Given a Second Chance, he shall either Embrace his Blood or Embrace Death. You Deny your Muggle Heritage. Embrace it or die, Tom."
I'm ashamed, I want to die. I am still however, angry. But for the same reason I felt angry all those years after starting at Hogwarts, when I learned about my Muggle father. No matter what, I can't accept that part of me. I say so and Harry nods. Suddenly someone pulls a wand and before I can react, Theres a flash of green light, and then black.