~ Chapter Two ~

The endless hills that were covered in green grass and vibrant red flowers were all he could see. This time however they seemed to shift as if they weren't actually hills but waves in the ocean. The movement was slightly hypnotic and Voldemort couldn't help but stare at the entrancing sight before him. The Dark Lord had never been one for beauty and yet he found this place to be something other worldly. Pandora's Box was a very mythical location that one would never usually see however he was blessed with this sight for a second time.

That was something in which he would have under any other circumstances boasted about before Dumbledore and his pathetic group of misfits or even his own followers to reveal how superior he was to them. Yet he kept this information to a bare minimum even within his own Inner Circle. He would never permit anyone to see what he could without his permission first or even before he managed to complete this puzzle. No, this was for him and for him alone.

A displacement of earth beneath him sent him sprawling backwards but it caused him to snap back into focus. Instantly he knew that he was once again in the field where he first met that alluring person he so wanted to bring back from this desolate place and keep with him forever, he was in Pandora's Box.

Standing, he wondered how he was going to make the journey to the pavilion considering that the hills continued to roll in a slow manor that belayed the force of the movement. Voldemort scowled into the distance in frustration. He needed to be by the young man's side and he couldn't very well do that by remaining at the beginning.

The fields looked as peaceful as ever but he knew that he wouldn't make the journey to see the mystery young man if he walked there. It was just suicidal and he'd be knocked about by the force until he was covered in bruises that would be very noticeable against his pale skin should they actually turn up on his skin when he woke. That would cause too many problems for him.

His most trusted of his Inner Circle knew of this room and his interest in it, not of what was inside but it was enough to guess what occurred should he arrive to meetings with bruises covering his body. They would instantly assume the worst. They would naturally assume that the ritual Wormtail had performed wasn't working and the potions that Severus had fed him to keep him stable and return some of his previous features had failed.

They would panic and keep attempt to do everything they could do make him better regardless of the risk to their own lives. It would turn into a disaster and he wasn't about to accept that yet. He would not give up on this plan.

One of the many things that actually aided him in his recovery was this room and he wasn't about to let that go especially with his mysterious figure that spoke to him. If there was one thing that he would never give up it was coming to be merely in his presence every day or night. It was here that he truly acted as himself.

Voldemort couldn't help but sigh as he felt his muscles relax in the atmosphere the room held. Even if the fields were a welcome sight to the bloodshed that he enacted daily to keep up appearance for other spies that were lurking amongst his ranks he couldn't help but remain tense every other day. This was the only place he could truly relax and it was a god send.

"Good evening, Tom."

Voldemort turned suddenly drawing his wand to see his mysterious man sitting in the gazebo. That caused him to blink and turn back towards the hills. He hadn't even realized that he was so close to the end of the stone road or the gazebo. Like last time he had believed that he would have to travel the entire way to meet with him.

It appeared as if the man had brought Voldemort to him to make things easier now that he knew the way and wasn't likely to forget in any hurry. That would also explain why the hills shifted as if sentient. They were a defence mechanism for intruders that wished to disturb the young man.

"Come take a seat."

The invite was taken immediately as for the first time he entered the gazebo and sat close to his mysterious person on the cushions that had mystically appeared since the last time he had visited him a month ago. There were even drapes hanging from the top of the gazebo that had him entranced. Surprisingly they were all done in shades of grey and not the usual red or green that blanketed the area.

Voldemort turned his focus to the young man before him resisting the urge to move closer and touch the milky pale skin he possessed. He was so close to the person and yet he instinctively knew that he wouldn't be able to touch him in his dream only in real life.

"There are many things I would like to ask you." The young man asked breaking the silence. "However I will answer some of your own questions that I may answer first."

Voldemort jumped as the melodious voice drifted to him. Then he narrowed his eyes. Yes there were many questions that he wanted to ask but only one that mattered to him personally.

"How did you know my true name and not the one I created?"

The man laughed sounding like small chimes clinging together in a calm wind. It was pure music to his ears.

"Of all the questions you have, that is the first you ask? You are a strange man Tom however I shall answer."

There was a slight pause as if he were considering how to answer the question. Voldemort watched as the breeze played with the mystery man's waist long black hair. He was gorgeous but Voldemort couldn't touch him, soon but not yet.

"I learn many things while trapped here, after all who better to have as a teaching aid than a group of Unspeakables?" he began. "However that isn't the only way I can learn and certainly not the way I discovered your true name."

"From this room I can travel anywhere I choose in the Department of Mysteries. None that pass through the halls see me so I remain untouchable even to those with the sharpest eyes. It is a very rewarding experience. The different rooms accompanied with the Unspeakables knowledge reveals many different things to me. The one that caught my attention however was a birth certificate belonging to an orphan named Tom Marvolo Riddle that was in the Ministry files."

Voldemort startled at that. He hadn't believed that anything with his original name in it existed any longer apart from that one trophy at Hogwarts for "services" to the school. Anything else containing his name had been destroyed by him personally even the orphanage in which he had grown up in. He had single handily wiped out everything pertaining to his past on his travels.

If something had survived then he would be at risk when it came time to actually confirming that he was Tom Riddle, heir to Slytherin. Sure Dumbledore already knew his identity because he had taught the young Dark Lord as a child but this was different. He didn't need others to locate proof that Tom Riddle and Lord Voldemort were one in the same. If that happened before he was ready all his plans would be ruined!

The youth before him smiled knowingly.

"Have no fear Tom. I kept the item before someone of importance came looking for it. It is now hidden in this room somewhere and since you are the only person who can enter it won't fall into the wrong hands and even at the chance that someone did enter they would have to search the entire room for it. However that one sheet of minimal information drew me on a search. It held some meaning for me and I desired to know what it was. I needed to know who you were so I could discover why I felt so personally connected to you."

The young man stood and walked around the pavilion to look out at the shifting fields.

"This room as you may have noticed is more than it appears. I can manipulate certain aspects of it to witness specific things I hear of or am curious about in the outside world since it's the closest I can actually get to being part of your world. When I became obsessed with your name, I used the room to scry for information about you. It revealed a large amount of information that normal people will never find Tom. Add that to the information that I matched to the Department's meagre finds and I know everything there is about you."

"Could this room be used against you should you leave?"

The question seemed to startle the young man. Voldemort managed to catch a few flickers of emotions that crossed the beauties face before it became blank again. The looks ranged from disbelief to anger then sorrow and finally acceptance. Perhaps he had never believed that he could find a way out of the room. Maybe no one had ever attempted to free the young man before.

"This room is more than just a simple room as I have told you previously. This room is my mind and should I leave this 'room' then it will cease to exist physically. Instead if I allowed you to enter my mind once outside of this place you would once again enter this room."

Silence followed that. Voldemort didn't have any clue what the young man was speaking of. It came to him in riddles that confused and frustrated him more than anything else. If the room was inside his mind did that mean that Voldemort was there now or did this room have a physical plane as well as a mental one? In that case where was his body? Was he even awake and aware of what occurred around him?

There were so many questions that had awakened within him and yet none of which he knew would be answered this time. However he had a feeling that wasn't the case. It was him that didn't want to discover whether the young man before him was truly alive. He feared that if he wasn't that the Dark Lord would return to the monster he was before they had met and he never desired to see that again.

The emerald eyed wonder turned to face him leaning on the edge of the pavilion that knowing look returning to his eye. "I believe there was something else that you desired to ask me?"

Voldemort's heart beat like a drum in his chest. There were so many questions that he had yet to find answers to and some he didn't yet desire to know. Did this beauty even know where he was or who he was? At least if he begun with small questions then he would get to know more about him and gain the young man's trust along the way.

"What is your name?"

The young male smirked at him. It led Voldemort to believe that he had secrets that he would reveal at a later time if at all. That at least gave him a small amount of hope that was foreign to his emotional range.

"The few Unspeakables that knew of my existence called me Ariel Ashling. Ariel means "Lion of God" however Ashling I believe they simply created on a whim after they had finished experimenting on me after all I was someone born anew like a Phoenix that rises from the ashes after its burning day. I was a new being, a rare being and one that they feared."

The name oddly enough suited him. It matched the way he seemed to prowl around topics that didn't agree with what he desired to speak of. He was certainly a very dictatorial lion. Ariel knew what he wanted and what he wanted he received much like Voldemort himself. However the last name confused him. Had they named him Ariel Ashling because he had been reborn as this person after some sort of experimentation? It would fit Ariel's belief over the Phoenix at least.

If he was an experiment then what kind of parent would allow their child to be taken and handled in such a way? Every wizarding family knew that the Unspeakables only cared for their scientific and magical results and not the process in which they arrived at them so many remained as far away from them as possible. Could Ariel have been an orphan?

Just thinking about the possibility caused Voldemort to scowl. However, no, that didn't fit the facts at all. Even if he looked unique, Voldemort could almost swear that he looked similar to that of someone he knew perhaps one the pureblood families that served under him? There was just something about him that was recognizable as one of the pureblood families. Perhaps it was the striking aristocratic features of his young face? Voldemort looked contemplative before he asked his next question.

"Is Ariel your birth name?"

Again the laugh that sounded of chimes caused shivers down his spine. Ariel moved back towards the Dark Lord again amusement clear on his face.

"No, Ariel is not my birth name. As I said before, it is the name given to me after my rebirth though you will not be able to ask them for this information as I killed the ones who created me after they had named me. I was dreadfully angry at what they had put me through and that included my parents and those close to them."

Voldemort noticed the dark gleam in his eyes and didn't doubt it for an instant. It shocked him that someone with such a Light oriented name was blessed with such dark magic but he loved the paradox all the same. It just caused Ariel to become even more enchanting to his Dark nature.

Yet he couldn't help but wonder over Ariel's birth name and the parents and friends of said parents. He didn't need to know but it was a part of the puzzle that made him unique and something special to wonder over. One way or another he would discover Ariel's birth name just so he had the knowledge for himself especially if he believed he had to hide the information from the one person who could communicate to him from the outside world.

But it wasn't just for him that he was preparing all of this for either. It was for Ariel. Voldemort had killed his father after learning of the dirty muggle that turned his mother away. He had enjoyed the feeling as his relatives died a look of pure horror on their faces at what they had done to their son and grandson. It had been pure bliss. Ariel however probably didn't have that same feeling. His instincts told him that Ariel's biological parents were still alive and well. Voldemort would do everything in his power to get Ariel's gratification at the knowledge his tormentors were finally dead.

"I think I have earned a question now, don't you?" Ariel asked startling Voldemort from his thoughts.

Obediently, Voldemort nodded and inwardly cheered at the small smile that blossomed over Ariel's face. That small stunning smile would be his only. No one would be allowed to see it again.

"Very well firstly I must ask what you are planning. What is it that you hope to achieve by attacking the Light Lord Dumbledore?"

Voldemort was purely flabbergasted. Never had he expected for Ariel to ask such a difficult question first up. He had kept all of his questions simple in an attempt to lure Ariel into trusting him however it appeared as if Ariel didn't trust very well and wasn't very open about what he spoke about yet manipulated others into speaking of what he desired to know.

"What of simpler questions?"

Ariel smirked. Voldemort knew it was a futile question but he needed to know what led Ariel to asking this question before he even attempted to answer it.

"Tom, I already know everything there is to know about you. What I don't know is what you think. I want to know what drives you to achieve these goals and what you plan to do once they are achieved. What is that you hope to achieve by what you are planning?"

He nodded accepting this answer easily. Ariel did already know everything there was to know about him.

"I realized at a young age that there were several things wrong with the way the wizarding world was governed. For one orphaned magical children had to remain at their orphanages until they either came of age or were adopted but by the time it was already too late for adoption not many people would want older children that were being sent to a private school by the school's own funding. There were no special orphanages for children like that. They were left to be forgotten by everyone and thought of as pathetic and weak."

Ariel knew that Tom was speaking from personal experience. An orphanage was a terrible place to grow up at least it had been for Tom who had been bullied at a young age but quickly began paying back his tormentors after discovering what he could accomplish.

"From there it went to discovering that only Light magic was acceptable in society. Everything Dark was shunned for being abnormal even those with creature inheritance. Nothing considered Dark to the Ministry was allowed to be a part of society at all. They weren't allowed to have jobs or homes. The Ministry forbid them from having a family and that included marriage and adoption of children since they weren't permitted to have them biologically. The entire system was a travesty and everyone who was Light accepted the system because it worked for them."

"I knew that I needed to make it more acceptable for these people. They were just like me, hiding their darker nature to be accepted in their own society. We were all hiding what we truly were inside and that was causing the magic in the world to crumble beneath the pressure. There was no balance to the magic and without the balance everything was beginning to fall. It caused more squibs and mudbloods to be born and the purebloods were beginning to die out."

Here Voldemort paused in thought. It must have been difficult, Ariel mused, to bare his soul to Ariel who in light of everything was a complete stranger to the man. They had only met twice even if Ariel had watched Tom for years. To do this would have taken a lot of reasoning from the man and even if this was what Ariel truly desired he didn't understand what caused the Dark Lord to hand his secrets over to him without anything substantial in return. It was truly a mystery and one that Ariel was determined to solve.

"However that was where I hit a problem. I couldn't make these changes legally like I had originally planned. None of the Light supporters would consider it since they were happy with the current state of politics and laws and the Dark supporters wouldn't support someone unknown and with little credit as openly as that. That was when I first heard of Grindewald. Everyone was speaking of him. Sure he wasn't someone well liked amongst society but he was attempting to make things better even if that included the blood supremacy."

"Do you support that idea?" Ariel cut through.

Voldemort scowled at being interrupted but answered unwilling to create any more distance between them than there already was.

"The only reason I agree with it currently is because the mudbloods are killing off the purebloods as I mentioned before. The balance between Light and Dark is off-kilter and is creating more of them when it should be the other way around. My theory is proven also when the Weasley's a known light family continue to spawn children whilst dark families such as the Malfoy's can only produce one heir. So yes I agree with blood supremacy since it will aid in harmonizing the balance."

The Dark Lord obviously expected him to say something else so it shocked him when he simply made a continue motion with his hands. If Ariel was truthful he would admit that he didn't care at all about any of that. He only wanted to see the Light wizards pay for what they did to him especially his family. If there was an explanation for why the Dark Lord was determined to support something then that was good enough reason for Ariel to believe it as well until he was proven wrong by another source.

"Grindewald was a true Dark Lord." Voldemort continued. "When he first began gaining support the Dark had hope that he would lead them to salvation. Eventually even that was dashed when Dumbledore defeated him and imprisoned him in Numergard. They no longer had anyone to fight for them. So I decided to take his place. However it didn't particularly matter even know Dumbledore is still the one everyone turns to. He is still the one making all the rules and I can no longer allow that."

"The headmaster of Hogwarts is the only person standing in my way to righting this world and the balance. I will see that he is removed from the equation. Then everyone will be able to live the way they were meant to be with both the Dark and Light in perfect balance."

Ariel took time to think on this. He knew that Dumbledore wasn't the only person standing in the Dark Lord's way however he was one of the more prominent figures in society. Once he was gone that would only leave one person left.

"What will you do of Christopher Potter, the Boy-Who-Lived?"

Voldemort snarled.

"That spoilt brat couldn't stop me even if he attempted to. He wasn't sorted into Gryffindor for his bravery no he was sorted there because he is arrogant just like his father. He is nothing more than a child and doesn't possess any power or ability to stop me regardless of what Dumbledore and the Light believe."

Ariel smirked and Voldemort noticed. Obviously the Potter family was someone that Ariel didn't like for what reason was unknown to Voldemort but he also knew that Ariel didn't like Dumbledore either. There were so many secrets that Ariel was hiding and some that the Dark Lord desired to know more than anything in the world yet knew he would never get an answer to. Finally Voldemort settled on asking a simple question.

"Why have you asked these questions Ariel? What purpose is this to you?"

Turning towards the Dark Lord, Ariel's smirk only widened.

"I wanted to make sure that when I am released from here I will make the correct decision about what side to ally myself with and not decided something that I will regret for the remainder of my life."

That led the Dark Lord to believe that Ariel had been watching the Light for a long time as well in an attempt to make a decision about the war and who to support. He was placing a lot of thought into this decision which was something Voldemort believed to be very note worthy. It caused Voldemort to believe that whatever side Ariel allied himself with would win the war. However what caught his notice the most was his first few words.

"When you get out?" Voldemort asked raising an eyebrow slightly.

He had been positive that Ariel believed he would never be free from this place to the point of giving up and simply surviving by remaining here. So it came as a surprise to him that Ariel said he was leaving with such a determined air about him.

"Yes Tom when because I know that you are determined to release me from this prison and anything that you are determined about you will succeed in." Ariel's eyes glittered in determination. A decision had obviously been made then.

"What have you decided then Ariel?"

Ariel blessed him with a small smile.

"It will be a pleasure to join you in your crusade against the Light, Tom. No matter what you go through, no matter what you shall learn, I will be by your side every step of the way."

Voldemort moved forward to touch his beautiful treasure and yet Ariel simply smirked as the world around them disappeared into nothing and he was denied his chance.


So I have another chapter! Thanks for everyone who reviewed this story love you all ^.^

~MidnightEmber