Walking in the Shadows of Gods
Fading To Black
"To be great is to be misunderstood." ~ Emerson
If he was completely honest, he wasn't sure when it all started.
Perhaps it was when the children first starting calling him Freak. Perhaps when he figured out he was different from them. Perhaps when he was told that he could attend a boarding school, a good one. When he found out he had good reason behind his conclusion that he was different than the children, better than the children.
Perhaps it was finding out that he was different from all the different children at the school too. Perhaps it was being ostracized by most of the school for being placed in the House of the Snakes. Perhaps it was the Parseltongue. Perhaps it was the fact that he found so many followers in Slytherin, where people were still sheep, if a different sort of sheep. Perhaps it was the Horcruxes. Perhaps it was the Dark Arts.
Perhaps it was the fact that everyone looked down on him because he didn't fit their 'ideal person'. Perhaps it was because he had spent his life being misunderstood, a wizard amongst muggle children; an intelligent, charismatic man amongst wizard children, if something of a cynic.
Perhaps, perhaps. Uncertainties. It didn't truly matter what molded him, except that he was curious. He was sure that the road he was on was the road to power, to immortality, to godhood. After all, there was only power and those willing to use it. Stupid old man that says otherwise.
He had power. Better, he knew he had power. He had followers. He had people scared of him, even scared of his name. He was focused, and gaining more and more in the way of magical power and political footholds every month. He only had one thing left to obtain. Immortality. He didn't wish to die anytime soon, especially when he was still on the rise.
He was definitely rising, and rising quickly. There was an upsurge in dark magic (which wasn't dark, not in the traditional way, just misunderstood, like him) and a deal of talk in the oldest families. The purebloods. The ones who would agree that muggle parents were not fit to be the parents of wizards. The ones who would stand by him because he believed that, so long as he never told them about old Tom Riddle.
Was he perhaps afraid of death, afraid of losing this power and these followers? At heart, he was still the little orphan boy, teased and hated by his peers, who wanted it all to stop. He was still the boy that found out that he could make others follow him. He was still the boy who wanted power to protect himself from the taunts and jeers. He was still an afraid little boy, afraid of getting hurt. It was a twisted sort of defense mechanism, sure, but a defense mechanism nonetheless. And now that he had the power, the fear, the devoted followers to protect himself, he found that he didn't want to risk ever losing them.
So he wanted immortality. He might even have been obsessed with obtaining it. That was perhaps where it started. He wanted to attain godhood, and to walk, not in the shadows of the gods, but in their presence. He would be powerful, eternal, and he would make everyone respect him. There would be no more taunting jeers for an immortal Tom Riddle. He would no longer be walking in the gods' shadows, not then.
He wanted to tell someone, to shout it out to the world. To shout out all the injustices and all the ways to defend oneself from them. To gain followers, perhaps, and to make sure that no wizard child was ever like him. Children didn't deserve the taunting, he decided, that he had grown up with. So he wanted to be a teacher. Perhaps it had started when Dumbledore (Professor Dumbledore) refused him the job. He wasn't stupid. So he would have to gather more followers. The purebloods might have simmered enough to listen to him by now.
But then he decided that Tom Riddle was a common name, a stupid name. The purebloods wouldn't respect him for it. That, and he didn't want to be named after a muggle man who was never a father to him. He wanted a name that was more suited, more worthy of someone in the presence of gods. He had been playing around with an anagram charm when he saw 'i am lord voldemort'.
And so he became Lord Voldemort. And so his name put fear in the eyes of others. The eyes of his followers lit up with delight at this name. Yes, it was a name worthy of a soon-to-be immortal man.
Then came the problem of becoming immortal. He couldn't figure out how. Then he read an obscure text, one that mentioned horcruxes. That obsession began there, when it said that horcruxes might be the path to immortality. And so Lord Voldemort talked to his old Head of House, Horace Slughorn, about horcruxes. He was somewhat irritated when he realized that horcruxes could be destroyed, but it would be so difficult, through methods so obscure, he felt safe enough. From there, he created seven pieces of his soul, which he turned into horcruxes.
And so, Lord Voldemort considered himself immortal. He was now fit to walk in the presence of gods, not just their shadows.
This is an entry for the Title Swap Competiton, the Emerson Quote Challenge, and the HP Potion Competition:Amortentia.