He kissed her one last time, swallowing down his disgust at himself for still needing this relief, for still seeking the touch of another body. He'd thought he was past that, but clearly he had been wrong.
Unable to look her in the eyes, he focused on anything and everything else; the soft blush of her cheeks, and the rise and fall of her breasts, shining with a hint of sweat, the few stray hairs that stuck to the skin of her neck, and the way her breath came in uneven bursts of warmth and a hint of strawberry bubblegum.
At this point, it always helped to clear his mind. He called up the few memories he had of this woman and mentally threw them away: her name, her smile, her fingers on his skin. She was only human, and he was so much more. He allowed the sense of excitement to creep up on him, embracing the promise that tonight, he would become greater.
Instead of whispering words of love, he reached for his wand, smiling.
'Avada Kedavra.'
He did not flinch away when the woman collapsed beneath him. Instead, he ran his fingers gently through her hair and over her lifeless skin. How beautiful, the death of others for his own life; for his own greatness.
It had started with his mother, of course. She was the first person to die for his life. How worthless she must have been. But after all, it was she who gave him a path that he would not stray from. It was the path to power, at the expense of the less worthy.
Their clothes lay on the floor, crumpled from the rush in which they had undressed. He had been human enough to need this, and desperate enough to use the body of a Muggle. He shook off the idea in disgust, and took a deep breath.
This was what true relief felt like.
Slowly, calmly, he moved his wand over her chest. There was no heartbeat, only the echo of one that had pounded so fast moments ago. With his wand, he traced the skin over her heart, murmuring incantations under his breath. Thin, black lines formed in the skin, spreading and deepening until the entire area over her heart was a rotten, beautiful blackness. Setting his wand down, he ran a finger over the decayed skin, and plunged his hand inside it.
He set her heart down carefully on the bedside table. Blackened, shriveled, and bloodless, it stood waiting. For him; for a greater purpose. The glow it emitted was almost scared, hiding beneath the seemingly dead exterior. It would take more than a simple curse to reach it.
A human soul.
The soul of a pathetic Albanian Muggle woman, struggling to do- what? Run? Hide? To him, it was just a soft golden glow, trapped inside a shriveled heart. There was nowhere it could go.
This was the true beauty of a Horcrux. Not the murder, not the curse nor another cold, limp body. No. It was the soul in the palm of his hand, so fragile and beautiful. So complex.
He took the heart in his palm, and squeezed it. Hard. Words spilled from his lips, shivering into the cold air, battling their way into the darkness. Louder, they made their way around him and the heart, the cage that held her soul against its will. They pounded at its bars, calling to enter. In the darkness of his words, the glow dimmed just a little, and he could sense her soul closing in on itself, collapsing a thousand times. Afraid. It had been ready to let go, to leave the body which had trapped it and to move on.
But the beautiful horror of making a Horcrux meant that it never would.
Still chanting, he lifted the heart to his lips. He could feel its essence rushing into him, dying as it did; filling him with life. It latched onto a piece of his own soul, cracking it apart. He screamed, an echo of the woman's voice; a final scream as her soul ended. He collapsed onto the mattress, pain cutting into him like a thousand knives. Her cold body lay beside him, and neither of them was at peace. Her soul was consumed inside his body, never to move on. Then, the knives still stabbing at his insides, he laughed; sharp and humourless.
The pain lasted several minutes, until finally, his soul was ready. Hers was gone. Dropping the now empty heart onto the mattress, he scrambled over the body, making his way to the sack he'd left laying on the floor against the peeling wall of the hotel. He pulled out the diadem.
One last transaction.
A bit more pain.
Tonight, he had killed one more human, one more soul, and one more piece of himself.