(A/N): IMPORTANT! In order to understand anything at all in this fic, I'm expecting that you've read Alternate Ending and/or The Torment Bred in the Race by paperrose on Mugglenet Fanfiction (fanfiction. mugglenet. com). You can probably Google search to find them if you're too lazy to search the site itself.
They're awesome fics; I recommend reading them anyway, but to understand any of this at all... yeah. You're going to have to.
Now, no, I have not asked the author for permission to write this. But who doesn't love backlinks and recursive fanfiction, anyway? I don't think paperrose will mind, and if s/he does, and they find this fic, I'll do what they want with it. If.
Read on!
AWAKENING
He opened his eyes, lying there on the forest floor, and smelled the mixture of dirt and rotting leaves.
Lord Voldemort began to stand up, looking around the clearing at his servants. He had a headache, and his thoughts were confused and desperate, with little blurbs of thought floating by every now and then.
How...?
That word was repeated more than most; it dominated over all of them. Voldemort tried to suppress these thoughts and found that they thought back; he put his hands to his temples and closed his eyes tightly, concentrating on dampening the thoughts that lurked there, the confused ramblings of a corner of his mind.
He eventually was able to suppress the thoughts almost completely, and that was when he realized that all of his Death Eaters were staring at him with shocked looks on their faces; Bellatrix, Malfoy, and so many others that he could not even call by name.
"Well?" one of them spoke, near the front of the crowd. His face was far more confused than most of the others'; he barely recognized the man, but did not know much about him at all except for that he fought on his side. "Aren't we supposed to kill him?"
The Dark Lord simply stared at him for a moment before finding a wand on the ground. He couldn't tell if it was the Elder Wand, but once he had said the Killing Curse and a bolt had shot out as fast as lightning, he knew that the wand was finally living up to its potential.
"Fools! Do you not recognize your own master?" he shouted angrily. His eyes flared, and he could feel them burning with rage. "I am Lord Voldemort, and I have defeated the Boy Who Lived! We celebrate, for we have won everything!"
The silence in the clearing was deafening. Bellatrix Lestrange was the first to approach him.
"M-my Lord?" she asked cautiously, bowing slightly to him.
He grinned, a merciless, evil grin. "It is I, Bellatrix. Bow before your master."
The witch obeyed before walking back into the gathered crowd.
"My Lord," another voice wavered. He knew it was Lucius without looking from Bellatrix.
"Yes, Lucius?" Voldemort asked his petty servant, the one that had tried to stop this battle in the first place. He put all of the malice into his voice as he could.
"M-my Lord..." he said, and the Dark Lord turned to him to see him stooping into a low bow at his feet. "You... he..." Lucius answered, his eyes darting around as if looking for the right words to use. "Someone... get a mirror."
Lucius looked back at those gathered, desperation clearly on his face, avoiding delivering the news he had.
Voldemort was growing impatient. He felt that migraine of sorts that he had had earlier returning, fighting back, almost.
No no no no no no no no no no no...!
The lost thought said that same word over and over again, and it fought hard to escape his mind; the Dark Lord easily suppressed it, but it did not remain still - it simply wiggled there, threatening that it could tunnel out of his head at any time. Once he had control over it again, he thought to it, tormenting it.
What are you, languid thing? Why do you choose to bother me, of all people, the Dark Lord?
The baffled thought continued its onslaught of rambling, incomprehensible gibberish for a few seconds, before it collected itself and was momentarily silent.
Am I dead yet? was the only thing it asked. Am I?
No, you bewildered thing. What are you?
Supposed to be dead.
Without warning, it let out a pained scream inside his head, and began searching for something - anything - that would let it out.
Quiet, insolent fool! Voldemort silenced it, shoving it back into another corner of his mind.
Meanwhile, someone had retrieved a mirror, by magic or otherwise, and handed it to the Dark Lord, bowing low to hope to avoid his certain vengeance.
Voldemort grinned a sick grin, dripping with evil, at the face in the mirror; one that was possibly even more famous than his own.
So I'm not dead, the forgotten dream, one which now had a name, realized with dawning horror.
Inside his mind, the Dark Lord grinned an even greater grin than the one he presented to the world. And then he spoke to it, the abandoned soul, one which would be tortured for more than another decade.
Harry Potter... I have much worse planned for you. Much, much worse.
(A/N): So, anybody like that?
Anybody get it?
Anybody enjoy the way I've written this?
Anybody?
Hello?
...
Or did I scare everyone off with the backlink?
...
Great. Well, whatever. Thanks for reading, if you're there, anyway.