Welcome to the last chapter for Rotten Roots!
I had a great time writing this and reading your comments, i really hope this story fulfilled your expectations and that you've liked it, thanks for all of you who stuck 'till the very end...
Hopefully you'll like this one and remember i still owe you an epilogue!
I'll see you tomorrow!
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24
Halloween's hell…
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October 31st 1981
That day in the morning he had done something out of annoyance, he wouldn't believe that he'd do something like that but he did it anyway…
"So, you are going to believe that Snape boy's words? Isn't that ridiculous?" Orion snapped angrily at Tom.
"Shut it, Orion!" Rabastan chastised, but Tom was staring at Orion with narrowed eyes…
Rabastan was fuming; Orion had always been stupid when in front of Lord Voldemort, never once thinking before acting out things and Tom had always been impatient to the Black…
"I'm just voicing out my concern, milord…" he tried to sound much calmer. "You tend to trust the weirdest of people…" he tried to smile.
"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked calmly.
Rabastan turned to look at Orion with a glare and the man felt his hands sweating, his eyes jumping from Rabastan's to Voldemort's face… and suddenly he snapped.
"Trusting Severus Snape! A bloody mudblood! A useless piece of crap!" he yelled.
"Mind you, Snape might be a mudblood, but he's on our side, while your useless oldest son is a blood traitor…" Voldemort muttered.
"Yes, he is… he wouldn't be the first… I might have to get rid of him like I did with Cedrella…" Orion muttered angrily.
Tom narrowed his eyes at him, he had been hoping Aurelia would get to kill him someday, but she refused to go down to his level and in all honesty he had been waiting for him to make the slightest mistake so he could kill him…
"Are you going to do as Severus told you? Are you going to spare that woman's life?" Orion spat bothered.
"Severus didn't told me to do anything, he asked me to… I don't see how that is of your concern…"
"Do you trust Snape, the mudblood?" he asked disbelievingly. "Just like you trusted that mudblood before?" he asked and missed the way Rabastan widened his eyes.
Rabastan turned to glance Voldemort's way and swallowed thickly when saw his jaw clenching and his eyes hardening, he took a step back a movement that Orion did caught and understood his mistake…
"Who are we talking about, now?" Voldemort asked turning around and pacing around the room, Rabastan stood still as if afraid of drawing his attention to him.
Orion quieted and swallowed feeling nervous; he shared a look with Rabastan who was fuming.
"Who. Are. We. Talking. About. Here. Orion?" he paused on every word feeling thrilled by his mistake.
"Milord…" he couldn't apologize…
Voldemort turned and waited for his answer…
"What's the point of not saying it? I already know who you are talking about, you might as well say it… out loud…" his red eyes narrowed dangerously.
"I might voice this concern as well, milord…" he cleared his throat and Rabastan shifted his weight utterly astonished by Orion's stupidity.
"Please do…" Voldemort smirked and awaited his answer.
"A few years ago you were on the verge of leaving your goal… quitting your dream because of that woman…" he said with distaste.
"That woman had a name, Orion…" Voldemort said.
"Aurelia… you were about to quit everything for her, milord…" he said again.
Voldemort grinned even wider and laughed lightly, both of the other men turned to look at each other with fear in their eyes.
"I said she had a name… never said you could use it in front of me…" his voice suddenly sounded dark and menacing…
"M-my d-deepest a-apology…" he tried to sound firm. Voldemort sighed.
"Yes… a few years ago I was on the verge of leaving all this for her, only to have a second chance in life with someone who understood me…" he walked around the room not looking at either of them. "And trust me, Orion; there are few things I would change about those years… nothing about her, but I certainly would've killed you when I learned about you killing her mother…" his red eyes flashed angrily in the darkened room.
Rabastan felt his throat dry and he wished he wasn't there, he could almost feel the way Orion wanted to blurt out what they have done.
"Lucky me, now I have a new reason to kill you…" he grinned at him.
Orion swallowed and went to take out his wand, when he pointed it at Voldemort this one only had to do a movement with his hand and Orion's wand flew away from him and far away onto the floor…
"Something you want to say?" Voldemort asked. "You had a merciful master, Orion…" he smirked.
"Given my way, the only thing I would change was the fact that I didn't kill her when I killed Cedrella… I should have…" he growled out.
"Great! Meaning that you should've died so many years ago… because I would've killed you the very next day…" Orion swallowed and closed his eyes, while Rabastan lowered his face… "Avada Kedabra!"
…
So, when everything was arranged and he finally learned where the happy couple lived he went, keeping in mind Severus pleas for him to not kill the woman; Lily Evans, married to a Potter…
He arrived to the house and with much ease opened the door; Lily Evans a lousy mudblood…
He got inside and looked around holding his wand up, his dark hood hiding his eyes and his concern; Lily Evans a blood traitor…
He heard noises and footsteps coming from the stairs and he immediately saw the man, the husband, he was unarmed and he couldn't care less…
"Please! Don't kill them!" he yelled desperately.
"Why should I listen to your pleas, when I didn't get to beg the day your guild killed her…?" he asked and James frowned not understanding. "Avada Kedabra!" he yelled and the man fell to the floor already dead.
Watching his face void of emotions and feeling thrilled about this, feeling how every time he got to kill a member from the Order he felt as if he was avenging her dead once again, and again, and again…
He went up the stairs and heard a door shutting loudly, someone gasping and a baby making noises…
There were two options for him; the Longbottom's son or the Potter's son…
Neville was the name of the Longbottom's kid, but Neville was a pure blood, both his parents; talented wizards, but blood traitors…
Harry was the Potter's boy, Harry was a half-blood… and so much he was reminded of his younger self… a lousy mother and a conceited, arrogant father… Tom picked him just because of the similarities…
He stood in front of the door of the room, with a flick of his wand the door opened, with his wand raised and pointing it at a wine red mane he felt his throat dry… she turned to look at him with wide eyes and the baby shielded behind her in the cradle…
Lily Evans, Potter's wife, the lousy mudblood, the blood traitor… reminded him of Aurelia…
He tried to blink away the picture of Aurelia and tried to focus on the woman, but he gasped when he noticed she had green eyes, vividly sparking with fear, like Aurelia's when he first met her at the library…
"Not Harry, please!" she yelled and he seemed to came out of his reverie. "Spare Harry's life! Please have some mercy!" she kept yelling shielding her son with her body.
"Move!" he snapped angrily. He was beyond furious.
How dare she? How dared she look like that in front of him?
He felt a pang of pain in his chest and drowned a moan in his throat…
"No, please!" she yelled again.
"I said; move! Only the boy!" he yelled pointing his wand at her menacingly, he just couldn't find the strength to conjure the curse, his jaw clenched tightly.
"No! Please! Please! I beg you!" she had tears running down her eyes.
"Kill her" a hissing voice in his head said, Tom widened his eyes and felt cold sweat on his back; he knew it was his voice, but it felt different…
It sounded different, full of dark emotions, full of pain and sorrow…
"Kill her, because she reminds you of Aurelia, but she's not close to being her… Kill her because Aurelia left you… she was supposed to be here with you, but she left… she was supposed to remain forever here, having a happy life with you… but she left and took your better half with her… Kill her now, because that way you'll avenge your pained soul…"
Tom was breathing raggedly and Lily knew when it was coming, she turned in time to shield Harry and she could hear him yell the curse, before she could even glance down at her son, she was already dead…
Tom lost balance and backed until his back collided with the wall behind him, his heart beating furiously in his ribcage, he was trembling and his head hurting with so many memories…
Watching Lily's half opened eyes and her red wine hair tousled and sprawled around her face made him gag, for a second he thought he saw Aurelia's body there in front of him, with the same blue dress he had given her that day…
And suddenly he was against a tree in the outskirts of the forbidden forest, his hands dripping with her blood and the grass around her body soaked in her blood, her half closed eyes looking at nothing, her lips barely opened with a last promise of meeting him at some place they used to meet at…
Tom closed his eyes tightly, and when he heard Harry's cries he opened them and he was in the room again; it wasn't Aurelia who was dead on the floor, but Lily Evans, and her son was crying madly in the cradle…
Tom raked his fingers through his hair and composed before taking a step to the boy, but the body of Lily kept him away, he just couldn't come any closer to her, she made him feel hollow… just how he felt the day Aurelia died…
He raised his wand and pointed it at the boy…
"Only I will live forever, Harry Potter…" he said. "Avada Kedabra!" the green flash left the tip of his wand and aimed for the boy's head.
Tom was about to turn and leave when he caught the sight of the green still there, the curse was being directed at him, the boy's cries intensified and he felt the curse hit his body… as if on fire it was as if being skinned, all his body hurt, but he knew he was not dead… he couldn't be…
…
"He wasn't there sir… he had left when I got there…" Snape muttered to Albus, his deep black eyes tinted with red from crying over Lily's dead body, how much had he begged and in the end his master couldn't grant him this wish…
"But… Harry is alive…" Dumbledore couldn't understand, he looked down at the boy and his eyes focusing on the wound of his forehead. "The prophecy was true after all… this boy manage to beat the dark lord…" he mused quietly.
"That was because of Lily!" Snape quipped angrily.
"Oh, yes, yes, indeed Severus… but, he's alive… and as bad as this might sound I don't think the dark lord is dead… weak, yes, but not dead…" Albus mumbled regarding the boy in the cradle.
Snape grimaced at his assumption.
"This boy might be our savior…"
…
1994
What would she think of him…?
Tom stared at his reflection in the mirror; the only thing that remained was his eyes… his red eyes kept glinting if only intensifying at the color… His skin was ashen and dry, he barely resembled a human and seemed more like a monster
"Kinky, Tom… Please understand this is how you truly are, your soul has always been like this, your physical appearance barely prompted your insides; you've always been a monster, with Aurelia and without her; always a monster…"
He frowned feeling totally overruled by a single voice in his head…
He had been so close to kill him this year, he had touched him; his blood was running in his veins… he wasn't Riddle anymore… he was less and less like the man Aurelia loved and more and more like the man she feared…
Was there to be ever a bit of luck for him?
He guessed not; Aurelia had been his second chance, ruined by a mediocre wizard, and even killing him didn't served his avenge… he wanted nothing more than have her again, but she had been right; not even him could transform the day into night…
What would she think of him?
He wanted to kill her youngest nephew's best friend… he had actually used her niece to try to kill the boy… the little girl was a lot like Aurelia's little brother, but she had the eyes of the mother…
When his memory in the diary met her, he had been thrilled for the girl to remind him of his lost love, but no, Ginevra was outgoing and brave, outspoken and a simple teenager… Aurelia had been so subtle and perfect…
Even if Harry Potter hadn't been able to save her he doubted he could've killed her… Aurelia wouldn't like to know he harmed her family; probably he would have just killed Harry and then let her go… but the boy had proven to be an accurate pain in the behind…
He was soon to turn fifteen, he was Dumbledore's favorite and he ought to be worried about the outcome of Severus' information; that woman; Sybil Trelawney had been right, but he wasn't to let a simple boy destroy everything he had done…
They had all had enough, fourteen years ago most of his fellow death-eaters had been sent to Azkaban, including Rabastan, he had freed them and everything was starting to work out, maybe in a year he'd have his army again…
...
1995
During this year he had been more active, Harry was an easy target for his much superior mind, make him believe things was just too easy… he remembered everything he hand done to assure that none was to believe he had returned, and most important of all he remembered his confrontment with the old man…
A rough fight in which he had been close to cast Harry's demise, but then again the boy had proven him to be difficult, not that he'd admit it…
Fighting Dumbledore that year had been a horrible look to the past, the way the old man had looked at him with so much hatred but pity too had taken a toll on him, he couldn't understand the root of the issue, but seeing Dumbledore had stirred memories of sweet and lovely Aurelia.
He had been careless too, letting Fudge to see him was a mistake, but in all honesty he was already tired of Harry Potter, if being seen by the minister would help him to kill the boy more quickly he didn't care.
He'd be prepared, now sending death-eaters to look for his favorite teacher he needed him to agree and become one; it'd be a great addition to his team; since he knew very well his situation…
...
May 1st 1998
With Dumbledore dead and Snape controlling the situation in Hogwarts this seemed like a won war…
But it wasn't until Harry and his friends stole the cup from the Lestrange's vault at Gringotts that he realized the boy knew his secret, meaning Slughorn had opened his big mouth…
When he took notice of everything it was already too late and everything he had was Nagini the Horcrux he had created when Harry was fourteen… too late and an impossible task was to go to Hogwarts and try to find Rowena's tiara…
He still remembered the horrible feeling inside when Helga's cup was destroyed, he had been so bloody mad that when Rabastan had asked him something he had turned and killed him then and there, he couldn't care less of his brother being there; Rodolphus had stayed quiet next to his wife…
He was to win the war, only he was to live forever…
Leaving Rabastan's body behind and with the sole goal of killing Harry Potter he walked to the field followed by all the death-eaters.
It wasn't until the dawn of May 2nd that he got to fight Harry Potter, after thinking he had already killed the boy, but he managed to live through his curse… for the second time…
When he launched his final attack to Harry he felt his will faltering and just as if on cue the spell rebounded on him… feeling the way his body abandoned this world he casted one last look at the boy, the boy who lived and managed to kill him…
Lord Voldemort finally died on May 2nd's dawn the first rays of the sun shining through the windows of the great hall where everyone had been fighting and dying, finally everything was over.
Harry felt relief like never before and now that everything was over he just wondered about Voldemort's soul; since he couldn't die completely it was a mystery what would happen to him now…
Doomed to roam his purgatory… Condemned to walk for eternity in the limbo, alone and drowning in the sorrow of his actions… a cruel fate for a cruel wizard.
…
Tom felt cold lying on what he assumed was the floor; it felt hard on his naked body, his body aching badly, his eyes stinging with the cold air, he tried to sat feeling much vulnerability at being naked in an open space he couldn't recognize…
His eyes roamed the tall stone walls and the torches perched on them, faintly lightening the corridor that now seemed fairly familiar, his eyes went down to his bared legs and realized his skin was not white and ashen colored, he raised his hand to level eye and watched in awe his human hands, the way he remembered them, he roamed his own body touching his abdomen and feeling much warm than he normally did.
He touched his face, his nose and ran his fingers through his hair, he let out a loud and trembling sigh… he must have died, but he thought this would be much worse.
He stood trembling slightly and supported his body on the wall behind him; he looked around the corridor and started to walk into the darkened hallway, feeling colder with each step, wishing he had some clothes on…
As if on cue to his words he suddenly felt his body warmer and realized he was wearing his usual black suit with his heavy dark coat on, he kept walking feeling much more confident and when he rounded on a corner he recognized the place to be Hogwarts' dungeons.
He started down the hallway that, he knew, would take him to the clear of the dungeons, taking a step towards it he felt his foot splashing something, when he looked down he saw the puddle of blood.
Frowning with disgust and gagging at the suddenly strong and metallic smell, he took another step, again looking down he saw something else reflected in the blood… his image… Frowning when he realized he was not only human, but much younger… as if he was barely 45.
"What the hell does this means?" he voiced out.
Tom raised his eyes away from his reflection and gasped loudly eve took a step back and almost tripped when his eyes fell upon the girl there…
Her red hair falling in soft waves on her back, her thick glasses hiding the green of her eyes, her uniform neat and a book clasped tightly in her arms, she was looking up at him with fear… the same expression she used to wear around him in school.
"It means you're dead, Tom…" she smiled softly.
Tom couldn't tear his eyes away from her and he had to even his breathing to hear the faintest of tunes, when it reached his ears he felt his eyes water, but not a tear came out…
"Should I sing you a lullaby?" she asked turning to leave and he tried to say something to stop her but couldn't remember any word.
He forced his legs to move and to follow her and the music grew louder, the voice humming it softly, the teenager Aurelia was leading him to the clearing of the dungeons where the metallic smell seem to be stronger…
She would turn every now and then to smile and to prompt him to follow her faster.
"I was afraid you had forgotten about this place…" the girl said not turning to look at him. "You forgetting we used to meet here…" she muttered and Tom's eyes widened when he remembered her last words.
"I'll wait for you… at our meeting place"
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