This one's basically one long diary entry by Tom Riddle. I'd recently read a fic (I forgot which one it was, something about Harry's kid being kidnapped and muggles breaking into Hogwarts), and I got wondering about how wizards would speak in their defense against muggle invasion.
That ended up turning into this, where a Good Tom Riddle writes about how he lived in a world where one of these muggle wars happened and everyone in the magical world was exterminated. Basically turning a dark fic darker and having a sympathetic wizard viewpoint during it.
Also, this poses an idea to make Horcruxes even eviller; not just soul splitting through an act of murder for the sake of immortality, but soul consumption to create anchors for a demonic entity. I never thought that just ritual murder and just splitting of a soul made for the most vile magical act possible.
I don't know how to begin this...well, maybe like this; everything went wrong.
I know that doesn't narrow things down much, so to clarify; repealing the Statute of Secrecy was a mistake.
Except we never got that far, did we? We got as far as a couple of reforms, Dumbledore and I, before they tore it all down.
I...remember, at the start, I sympathized with their goals. I didn't like purebloods either, so I tried to talk with them, to push them towards peace.
Oh, right, you probably have no idea what I'm talking about. Well, it all started when...wait, no.
...Look, ever since I can remember there's been a rift between muggleborns and purebloods. It's there because pureblood wizards generally aren't nice people.
I could've listed their faults in my sleep. It's mostly racial superiority. Goblins, elves, giants...and muggleborns, they discriminate against them all.
When I graduated from Hogwarts, I ended up making it my goal to reform wizarding society, get them to treat other races as equals. And maybe clean up a bit of the corruption in the Ministry.
Except it didn't work out that way, did it? While I was trying to enlighten the wizarding world, dozens of muggleborns had gone back to the Muggle world.
They formed into gangs (or perhaps the better phrase would be 'terrorist cells'), they plotted, and they told the Prime Minister their version of events.
Of course, he believed them. Why wouldn't he? The purebloods never told him anything.
So, he fell for the muggleborns' stories, the ones where purebloods were irredeemable ku-klux-klanners who were behind so many murders and kidnappings and whatnot.
Oh, yes, I almost forgot; they were doing it in other countries too. America, Africa, China, they were poisoning the well against us.
I don't know what happened in other countries, but in Britain, they started with a three-pronged strike. Diagon Alley, the Ministry of Magic, and Hogwarts.
I was in the Ministry of Magic at the time of the attack. I was able to hide, and escape, I don't know if anyone else made it.
I can tell you, while I was there, though, it was a massacre. They murdered everyone who was there, no matter if they were fighting, running away, or trying to rescue others.
Did I mention this was done by Muggles? They had enchanted guns, from the muggleborns. From what I learned afterwards, they considered everyone there an enemy hostile just because they had wands, and the ones running away were 'resisting'.
They did worse in Hogwarts. They broke into the Great Hall during dinner. They shot every student who raised a wand, shot every one who tried to run away, shot everyone who tried to say something.
And they made their announcement, something about how purebloods wouldn't be allowed to kidnap and murder any longer, and that the magicals of Britain would submit to the Muggle government.
Then they marched everyone there into detention centers, which, by the way, I heard were hellholes. Did I mention that they killed anyone who spoke up against their hypocrisy?
...I don't know what happened to Dumbledore, by the way. Sometimes I hope that he escaped. But I never saw him again.
So long as I'm on the subject of hypocrisy, let me tell you what else they did.
The elves that the muggles claimed we were bad for enslaving? They slaughtered them for the crime of trying to defend their homes, and magical children.
The goblins? When the muggles broke into Gringotts to seize pureblood fortunes, they claimed the goblins were 'resisting' and exterminated all of them, too.
That was a trend in general; the muggles would go somewhere, to some place where magical creatures lived, and shoot them when they protested the intrusion on their home.
They even killed other muggleborns, too. Ones who wouldn't join in the slaughter, who were hiding innocents or who called for peace or who just didn't want to get involved.
What was I doing? Despite everything, I still wanted peace. So I did some research. I found out how to hack into television signals with magic, and I broadcast a personal message denouncing the bloodshed and calling for peace.
Fat load of good that did. They put some soldiers on TV right afterwards to testify about how magicals were oh-so-bad and deserved to be slaughtered en masse.
At that point, I was close to giving up. I didn't care that much about the purebloods anymore, but I was still hoping that the humans could be redeemed.
What I did was, after Gringotts was sacked, I snuck down there. I took one of the bigger vaults and turned it into a personal biosphere, a lifetime's food and water for me. And wards adjusted for the muggle weapons.
And then, well, I broadcast. Whenever I could, I called for an end to the genocide, called out the difference between propaganda and fact, everything. I broke into the internet, onto the TV, the radio, anything I could.
And then, at some point...I guess I gave up. Consider this all my warning to you, peace and love and the power of pure good solves nothing.
You can be the kindest, most righteous person in the world, it doesn't matter if some homicidal bastard decides they don't like you.
...Want to know what I did after I gave up? I changed. I started experimenting. Designing every doomsday weapon in the book. Everything to make the muggles pay for their cruelty.
Incurable plagues? I did that. Zombie apocalypse? They're called Inferi, but yeah, I managed to make them infectious too. Volcanos, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes? I learned how to make all of them happen.
...And yet, none of it would bring back the magical world...so...It took years, but I succeeded in reinventing time travel. In a form that worked for me.
And...well, you must have guessed the rest by now, right? The destruction of the magical world hasn't happened yet. I'm still in a muggle orphanage. They don't know who I really am.
I've got a plan, this time. I can't wipe out the muggles without well-meaning wizards or something else coming to stop me. There's no way around that.
But I know a way to make something that can't be stopped. Something immortal, that comes back again and again, that can never be truly destroyed. Technically, it can only be banished.
Do you know anything about demonology?...I know. Demons can usually only exist in our world as long as their summoner lives, or until they're dismissed.
But, if they are given the soul of their summoner, their anchor to the world, they can put it into a physical object, something that can be warded and made nigh-impervious to destruction, and that ensures that they stay in the mortal realm until that anchor is lost.
If you haven't realised by now, I'm describing making a horcrux. They aren't the evilest-of-evil just because they involve a murder and some soul-splitting, you know. That's a myth.
They're the darkest of all magic, because you sacrifice everything, you, your soul, your afterlife, everything, to bring about an agent of destruction for the sole purpose of causing suffering.
I'll admit it. I used to think making a horcrux was insane. Who would be so utterly consumed by hatred, revenge, and self-loathing, that they'd destroy themselves utterly for it? Nobody.
But then, I went through...well, everything. The future. Any kindness, any mercy, for me, would ultimately be futile. All I have left is pre-emptive revenge.
...I'll let you in on one more thing, though...that soul-splitting thing? It's not usually part of making a horcrux, but it is possible.
In fact, I'm going to use it. One horcrux can be destroyed to banish the demon back to hell, but how about seven? It's a magical number to bring good fortune, if you somehow don't know.
When I summon the demon and perform the Horcrux ritual, I'm going to break my soul into 7 parts, which I'll give to the demon.
That way, it can make multiple anchors with my soul. I'll advise it to hang on to one so he's not banished if all of his other anchors are somehow destroyed at once.
It's done, the demon's waiting for me to finish the ritual.
To protect its true identity from divination, I'm going to let it use my face, and an anagram of my name. 'Tom Marvolo Riddle', to 'I Am Lord Voldemort'.
...Dumbledore, if you read this...I'm sorry. For what, I don't know.
-Tom
