Tom had thought nothing could hurt quite like the fact that she never loved him. Realizing that, and realizing that he knew that inside of him all along, had been the single greatest pain he had ever experienced. He had been carrying that pain for decades now.

But he had been wrong. He had found something that hurt more – the knowledge that now she would not even have the chance to. The knowledge that was his fault. It was worse, a thousand times worse. Whereas he had grow accustomed to the dull ache of not being enough for her, he was sure he would never grow accustomed to the feeling of his heart being missing from his body.

He is sitting, waiting, in that great big chair of his in Vera Sinclair's family manor. He imagines Vera, when she was young, running around this room bothering her father and causing mischief. He imagines her in her bedroom as a teenager, smirking as she signs a biting letter to a boy she no longer fancies or smiling as she twirls in one of her gorgeous gowns. He can't stand to be in her house anymore, not with all these thoughts of her constantly floating through his head. And yet he can't stand to leave either. If things had worked out differently, this would have been their home. Instead, he's borrowing it from their son.

It takes a bit longer than he expected, but surely enough the door is eventually flung open and a weakly detained Samson Aleski-Sinclair comes marching through, screaming and attempting to brandish his wand in the heat of a struggle with two other Death Eaters, his attention on the Dark Lord at all times.

"Take his wand but leave us," Voldemort orders the two others. He watches as they walk away, waving his wand to close the door behind them, "Sit."

"I will never take orders from you again," Samson growls out. "I'd rather you kill me than ever bow to you after what you did."

"You hardly know what you will hear and yet you already refuse to listen. You are just like your mother," Voldemort flinches and he's Tom again, only this version of the condescending Sinclair he faces is male. He corrects himself, "Was. Sit boy."

As soon as the word comes out of Voldemort's mouth, tears are falling from Samson's eyes. Instead of sitting he just collapses on the floor next to the desk, weeping and crying out, "How could you kill them?"

Tom looks away, "I was trying to save her."

It's a raid. Voldemort turns his wand in his fingers out of nervousness, because this one is different. It is a raid of the Italian Ministry, and Dante and Vera are supposed to have gone home by now, but no one has given him the confirmation of seeing them leave, and he can't put off the attack time any longer or people might wonder. His mind reasons and reasons but can create no solution.

"Has the minister's wife left yet?" Voldemort once again asks the Death Eater kneeling beside him.

"The car left a few minutes ago, but no one has confirmed who was in it."

It's 9:00 p.m. and he can't put this off any longer. He made sure she had reason to leave. It's almost certain they are gone. That she is home, tucking her children in bed, safe and not about to see a very real demonstration of how much he has changed, how much of his humanity has left him to be locked away in those little trinkets - one of which she still wears.

"Start phase one."

Three phases later, the Death Eaters have breached the lower floors of the Ministry and are working their way up, aiming for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. They had been sending aurors to Britain to help the Ministry there. He had to make an example of the kinds of consequences other governments could expect if they did so too, before his followers became seriously outnumbered. The band of a few dozen Death Eaters with him reach the top floor in under an hour, trying to keep the operation quiet so as not to trigger any evacuations. They kill a few guards, but it is mostly empty at this late hour. After all, few other departments have reason to be present and on alert at all times.

The first alarm is triggered as they march up the staircase to their destination, by an auror standing at the top to guard the main doors to the floor. Soon, doors all along the long hallway to the right have burst open, with seemingly every ministry official available rushing in to the courtyard in an attempt to surround them. Tom feels the buzz of magic in the air as someone starts attempting to break the Ministry's anti-apparition charms. Something feels familiar. He does not give it much thought. This is by far not the first battle they have fought.

In the madness of the many duals between aurors and Death Eaters spreading out around the floor, someone gets greedy and decides to follow the hallway on the left down to the Minister's wing instead. This shouldn't be a problem, but there's a hot kettle on his assistant's desk, and now this minion knows they are still here. The masked Death Eater calls for others to join him as he starts attempting to break down the door to the Minister's office. The crinkle of magic in the air grows stronger, the anti-apparition spell finally starting to flicker out. Voldemort doesn't have reason to call the rouge Death Eaters back. He doesn't even have reason to listen to the sound of splintering wood, too focused on the primary goal of taking out as many aurors as possible before they can all disappear. And then he hears a voice and it's her voice. Strong and stubborn, determined and assured.

In the second that the door breaks, Dante's shield is still up, blocking the Death Eaters from entering any further in to the office. Her wand is still pointed at the sky, muttering a spell that sends lightening bolts in to the air. In the next second, Dante's shield is pierced by ten spells at the same moment and cracks apart. She sends one last bolt colliding in the air and then turns her wand to them, a smaller shield appearing in front of her as she steps in front of him. She knows it won't hold for long - she is exhausted already. She knows Dante has his wand pointed alongside hers. She reaches back behind her and squeezes his other hand. She hurriedly whispers something that is both a command and a plea before turning back to the crowd of Death Eaters that are now staring at her apprehensively, most seeming unsure how to proceed.

"You'll have to kill me first."

He turns and runs. Such a muggle thing to do, run. But he can't think of anything else at the moment. He runs and he runs and yet there isn't time, despite the fact that everything appears to be moving in slow motion.

The spell is already flying toward her by the time the room starts to burst with the sound of pops as the injured aurors finally find themselves able to successfully apparate. She smiles and squeezes Dante's hand again. There isn't enough time left for her, but there is for him, if he can please just focus.

The spell hits her just as he bursts through the crowd to see her. She looks at him for a second, recognizing him even behind the mask, but then her eyes get that eery green glow. Her husband catches her before starting to swirl out of sight.

The whole world is crashing down on him. On him, the most powerful of them all. How could this be?

Even he is surprised at how loud his voice comes out, "No."

Dante's wand snaps from the raging energy carried in Tom's words, ending his attempt at apparition. The failure results in the splinching of his wand arm, a deep gash cutting diagonally from his elbow to the top of his biceps. She slips from his arms and her body crumples to the ground.

Dante and Tom stare at each other across the room. Dante wants to berate him, to remind him this is his fault in the first place, but knows that without any protection in place such an act would only give him even less time to think of another way out of this. The reminder is not needed anyway, evidently, as the Avada Kedavra that he sends flying is aimed not at Dante, but at the two Death Eaters that had fired the fatal curses at her. The others are silent, all but holding their breaths as the demise of his errant followers is signaled by a thud when they fall.

"She made a choice. You are taking that away from her," Dante says when he dares to speak. He has accepted that there is only one way for this all to end. Really, there had only ever been one way for this all to end since that Christmas break all those years ago.

"Did she ever really know what she was choosing?" Tom fires back.

As soon as Dante speaks again, Tom realizes giving him the chance to reply was a mistake. Surely those who had known him since his school days would be intelligent enough to piece together the rough outline of why he was so enraged now. The ones who were actually wise among them might even be able to take the extra leap regarding his favoritism to one of their youngest members who was curiously not present at the time.

"I'm sure she at least knew who she wasn't choosing."

The unforgivable flies from Tom's wand and hit it's target straight in the heart. He begins to apparate away before Dante even drops.

Tom had known he was going to cast the spell as soon as he'd seen her eyes fade and registered the potential reasons for her sacrifice. Either she really did love Dante or she felt that she was responsible for the position they were in and should be the one to face the consequences. Tom was skeptical of the first explanation, doubting that his ice queen could ever love someone enough to value their life over hers. The second was much more plausible. After all, she had never been a coward, never one to dodge his punishments. And what did the second rest on? His promise that day on the beach, when they had seen each other last - a rash reaction to an emotional wound. If he hadn't balked so harshly at her repudiation, would she have hesitated to jump in front of her husband when the threat he had made was almost at hand? Would they have been able to fight long enough for him to have let them go together?

It is much easier to blame Dante's meddling with her feelings than to blame himself.

His mind flashes back to his study, staring at their son, who is on the floor crying and screaming at Tom because Tom is responsible for her death. He knows it, and that terrifies him. He had always thought he had the power to keep her safe, to insulate her from his war, but he's failed. Somehow he manages to convince Samson that he really was trying to protect her and wanted to save her. Somehow, he gets Samson to allow him to come see her before she is buried.

It is after the ceremony and Tom is still standing there, still as a board just staring at the coffin. Everyone else has left by now. It has been hours since the last regards were given. Samson is sitting in the last row of seats in the back, and Tom doesn't realize that he is still awake, let alone can hear him.

He finally just falls to his knees in front of the coffin, bowing down to it as he swore he would never bow to any person. He is muttering to himself as he tries to push the tears from his cheeks.

"Why? Why did you have to be there? I tried to tell you. Why did you try to protect him? You were always so stubborn. I could have saved you. I could have. I know that isn't what you would have wanted, but don't you give a damn about what I want anymore? And I want you alive. Why would you, how could you, just leave me like that? You saw me, you knew I was coming. Couldn't you just have moved out of the god damn way? I could have saved you both. Why Vera? I loved you. I love you."

Samson, in his lonely corner with the ever present cloud over his head, thumbs through an old journal he had found in his mother's room. At first, he had believed the coded messages were communications to English officials. When he had unlocked the truth, it had been a simple diary of her Hogwarts years. And now he knew for certain who the mysterious dark haired boy she described was.

He waits nearly two weeks to share his findings. Samson had just entered Voldemort's study - still in his mother's house, as if he could not bear to let go of that one last shred of her he could see or at least imagine - to give him his morning paper.

He drops the paper along with the journal on his desk and turns to leave. Without looking up, Voldemort mutters a thank you that Samson still knows is more for the funeral than for any mundane task he performs.

"My pleasure, Tom Riddle," he lets slip out. The door to the study slams shut. He turns back and Tom gestures to the chair across from his. Samson sits, nearly shaking, wondering if his blank expression is simply a mask for his anger as usual. He does not miss the fact that the journal has been pulled closer to the other side of the desk, Tom's slender fingers tracing the initials engraved into the cover even as his eyes remain trained on Samson.

"You read it?" He asks, raising an eyebrow at the boy.

"Yes."

"You will have to enlighten me on it's contents then."

"It should suffice to say there are more than a few pages about seventh year," Samson answers. Tom's stare does not waver, so he continues. "It was already coded extremely well, so I doubt she hesitated to keep anything from these pages."

"Your mother enjoyed her secrets," Tom says, tone betraying his own as well as Vera's assumed annoyance at the invasion.

"If she enjoyed them that much, she would have burned it long ago," Samson replies smoothly.

Tom finally flips the book open, only taking a quick glance at the date on the last page. Their last day of school.

Samson does not miss the disappointment that crosses his face at this discovery. He interrupts his concentration by saying, "That's why you killed him then?"

Tom looks up again but seems almost absent from the room, mind still lingering on his reading, "Who?"

"My father."

"I never killed your father," he says somberly.

"Yes, you did," Samson replies, anger clearly rising as his knuckles turn white from his grip on the chair.

"No, I killed Dante Aleksi. That man was not your father."

Samson appears to calculate at least part of what he is saying. He has heard the older Death Eaters whisper about Orion's continued obsession with her, after all. He bursts out from the chair, nearly leaning across the table as he hisses, "How dare you spread such rumors about her. My mother never would have -"

"They aren't rumors. I know the truth of them myself," Voldemort waves a hand to signal Samson not to interrupt. The boy settles back in the chair, still flushed red and glowering, before he continues, "Yes, what is written here about the time Vera and I spent at Hogwarts is true, even likely a bit tame compared to reality. However, it didn't end where this does. We had one last night together - the night before her wedding. She apparated to the hotel in London I was staying in, saying that she didn't want to get married. She offered to spend the rest of her life with me. I considered it, more seriously than I ever would have in another moment. I could imagine us together. I was already planning where in England we would live. In the morning, she was gone again, and that afternoon I attended her wedding. For all her angelic qualities, Vera was a sinner who couldn't be matched - she married Dante the same day she conceived you with me."

"That can't be true."

"I am sure she wrote at least one description of my youthful features that would convince you of the similarities."

Samson looks terrified, "You are my father."

Voldemort just nods.

The boy shakes his head at him, the furious quality of his features heightened by this revelation, "And you still let her die."`

Vera was still wearing his ring when she died. He had slipped it off her finger at the funeral. As poetic as the thought of her being buried with a piece of his soul seemed, he needed it now.

He turned the stone, every dawn and every dusk. Good morning, good night, my love, I miss you so. Even the ghost of Vera laughed at him missing something that was never his.

Samson however, was not thrilled at seeing his father crumpled on the ground muttering to himself with such frequency. Three months in, he finally says something, "You need to stop this. Don't you see that - whatever that is - is not my mother? My mother is dead, and she isn't coming back. Whatever invention of your memory you have conjured up to replace her is just a perverse attempt to avoid blaming yourself for her death. You lost her. She is gone. Forever."

Tom does not move his eyes away from her form, greedy to take it in. He knows from the stories he should only keep her here for so long. He replies sharply, "I am the most accomplished wizard alive. I conquered my own death, why can't I conquer hers? Tell him I can do it Vera. Tell him you'll come back to us."

He knows she cannot just be a construct of his imagination, because even like this she refuses to tell him anything he wants to hear, "Death is final Tom. You can try to avoid it all you like - and you may be successful - but you cannot undo it."

"No one has done it before, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. I am focusing all my attention on this, and I am not a person who doesn't achieve their goals."

"It doesn't matter if you can. I don't want to come back. Some things are final. You chose your war over me..."

Tom cuts her off, screaming so loudly that Samson is afraid the other Death Eaters will hear and realize he's finally actually gone mad, "I didn't chose anything over you! I wanted you, in the most desperate ways. But you chose for me. You chose to leave. You chose to make me this way."

"No, you were this way all along. I chose not to support what I knew you would be. I don't know why I let Dumbledore convince me that there was anything inside of you that would want to be redeemed, that would want to stop this war, but I regret…"

His passion is so strong that his words make the room quake as he screams, "I have stopped this war! I stopped it for you!"

Her spirit smiles at him mockingly, "Have you my lord? You might be sitting here all day talking to a ghost but your commanders are still out there, destroying innocent families like my own."

"He wasn't innocent and you know it. I had my war and he had his, only his methods were more agreeable to you. Or maybe it was his money that you found more appealing. Is that why you left me that night?"

"Tom, you know it never could have worked. You are just looking back now and realizing that you made all the wrong choices, and you are trying to make yourself feel better by blaming it all on that one thing. On me."

"I didn't make the choice, you made the choice! Now I'm making the choice to bring you back so we can do it again. We can do it correctly this time. Look at him. He needs you. I need you."

"It's too late. You might have magic but it doesn't mean you can make miracles happen," she responds before fading to nothing. After that day, nothing happened when he turned the stone. She would not come, and there was no one else who he wished for.

A/N: Hello all! FYI, I did take out several scenes written between other characters that I had in mind occurring between the last chapter and this one, as they were sideplots and I wasn't sure anybody would really be interested in reading several more chapters of action not involving Tom at all. If anybody does want to read the following, please review to let me know and I will consider editing this story to add in additional chapters:

1. Samson's first Death Eater assignment was spying on his own parents, which was really Tom's excuse to keep him safe per his promise to Vera. Samson's very open about his new ideals and Dante soon has concerns that something might be up. When he brings these concerns to Vera, she tells him that she knows Samson is already a Death Eater. This sparks an argument about how he knows she didn't want to marry him and about her relationship with Tom. My favorite line from this scene, said by Dante, is: "Actually, even worse than knowing that you only went through with it because it meant finally getting free of your parents, is the fact that you invited your lover to our wedding and he came. You said I do while looking at him, and you thought i didn't notice anything all this time. And now that same lover is turning our child into a monster, so thank you once again for screwing your way into trouble."

2. After Vera dies, Orion asks to leave the Death Eaters, an unprecedented event. Tom agrees, but makes him promise his oldest son will take his place once he is old enough to. When Orion recognizes Sirius is not the type of person who would survive in such an environment, he drives him away on purpose. Regulus, on the other hand, knows exactly why he has to take the mark, and it is part of the reason he decides to use his position to gain information on and try to destroy the horcruxes. Also featuring an argument between Walburga and Orion where she learns Vera had an affair with Orion and he's actually the father of her twins. Dante wanted more children, she realized he was infertile, and she had the affair so that he wouldn't realize Samson couldn't have been his son.

The next chapter is the last. I did not want to split them up, but I felt it was necessary to have a breath between these scenes so they did not get too overwhelming. Please keep reading even though I've killed off a main character some of you may actually have liked - and perhaps one you did not. I promise there are still more surprises to be unveiled :)