Chapter 27: Love and Rage

One would think that after successfully getting away with murder and escaping to a luxurious log cabin in the middle of the picturesque mountains of Brasov Bellatrix would be happy but she wasn't.

"You glory stealing cunt!" She roared at Snape wand raised and pointed at his jugular.

Draco slapped his aunt's wand and shouted, "I wasn't going to kill him! I'm not a murderer, Aunt Bella."

The look on her face one would have thought he had admitted to cannibalism. "Don't say things like that Draco."

"It's true. I wasn't going to kill him." He said with a voice strained with shame. He knew what he was admitting.

"You were just... nervous. There were too many people—"

"I couldn't do it even if I knew I could get away with it. I couldn't do it." He dropped his head.

Bellatrix went deadly still face ashen. Then her face changed to that of heartbreak, then of disappointment and disgust. "So spoiled. All the Dark Lord has done for us and he asks you to kill a man that's already half-dead and you refuse." She sneered, saying it with such disdain as if the words tasted as horrible as they sounded to him.

Draco hung his head in shame.

"I'm disgusted with you." She said. With that, she turned on her heel and disappeared.

For a while neither of them said anything. They merely stood on opposite sides of the room avoiding eye contact. But then eventually Draco broke the silence and asked, in the tiniest most pathetic little voice, "Am I going to die?"

Severus's heart broke immediately. For he didn't know. But of course, he lied. "No. You are not going to die. Not tonight."

"How do you know?" He demanded, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

"Because I won't let him."

Draco ran into him and clamored onto him as he used to when he was five. Severus stood there still while silent tears ran down his worn-out face.

"You must think I'm the clingiest witch..." Voldemort joked, his head resting against her thigh, ashamed of the tear marks he left on her dress.

"I love it," she confessed, tracing the shape of his ear with her index finger like old times. "I love clingy."

"Don't tell me that," he snickered misty-eyed. "You'll never get rid of me."

His choice of words pained her greatly. It's why she stopped tracing his ear and said in a desperate plea, "You don't have to do this."

He lifted his head up, confused.

She held his gaze then said, "You don't have to do this." She grabbed his hand and squeezed it tight. "Please. Let the boy live, Tom, please. You don't have to be this person. You're better than this, Tom."

He looked at her hand and when he looked up at her his face had hardened. He tugged his hand out of hers and said, his voice clear and hard as diamond, "This isn't about Potter. This is about making removing witches and magical folks out from the rocks of oppression against muggles. This is about making sure they don't burn any more of our kind. This is about—"

"This is about you achieving apotheosis! Don't lie to me. I know you, Tom. You want so badly to be immortal take the whole worth down with you! And exploiting people's hates and fears into getting what you want!"

He gnashes his teeth, eyes flared with indignation. "Must be so easy for you to judge. I forgot, mom, how many deaths did you cause during the 1840s? Hmm? Last time I checked you decimated a third of the Scottish sailing community."

"I've changed Tom. I got better."

"Did you? Look at your life. Your only friends are murderers and thieves. Your husband's a Death Eater. You claim to be miss ethics but you don't seem to mind lying to your sisters about me. You have a voice so powerful you could probably rule the world for good but you waste it getting fucked by some greasy half-blood—"

His speech ended when Ariel's palm collided with his cheek.

He didn't even flinch. He merely met her glares with his own.

They were still glaring at another when Snape arrived to make the announcement of Dumbledore's death.

"My Lord," he began but neither of them turned their heads to acknowledge his entrance.

"You know why we met ma?" Voldemort told her in a cold unfeeling voice that Snape and the rest of his followers most associated with him. He leaned forward and said, "Remember those two kids from the orphanage? The ones who came into the cave with me? I lead them in there. I was going to kill them. I planned on bashing their heads in. That's why we met. Not because you were kind but because I was what I am now—I am a god of death. And soon, no one will be able to stop me."

Ariel didn't say a word. Her mouth screwed tight, nose hooked upward, her blue eyes running.

He got up and addressed Snape for the first time. "You better have good news."

"He's dead, My Lord."

He let out a cold laugh them turned his head at Ariel and said, vindictively, "Good." Then he pushed himself from the bed and stride out of the room, demanding, "Make sure she's transported to the safe house."

"Don't come near me." She ordered, snapping her head at Snape who, every time he tried to draw closer to her, to whisk her somewhere safe for the look of disdain in Voldemort's eyes petrified him to his core, he was forced away like they were two opposing magnets. Then she whipped her head at her son, mouth opened ready to use her voice but he was too quick.

"Silencio!"

Her voice was snuffed out like a candle flame. She stood stricken, mouth hanging open uselessly, underneath Voldemort's rueful smile. He laughed in her face. "Catfish got your tongue?"

She glowered, quacking with rage. He smiled, victoriously until Ariel threw her entire body at him. He reacted fast, but she caught onto him, and when he disappeared he took her with him.

They landed, hard, into a plot of sand just before the cave where she knew he was going. She was all arms and hands trying to pin him down but Voldemort shoved her off of him. She fell on her side. She was picking herself up, ready to charge him, when she looked and saw his wand pointed directly at her nose.

His face was that of such pure loathing, burning, eyes narrowed with that terrible glint in his eyes that she saw all those months ago, when she was just a kidnapped enemy, before she was special to him. His mouth was a tight line. Then a horrible second later, his lips parted wide when he threw his arm above his head.

She turned her head.

"CRUCIO!"

She expected pain. Instead, she was met with the sounds of rumbles as the world violently shook. She opened her eyes in alarm expecting the earth to collapse underneath her and swallow her whole. But it didn't though.

Something crashed behind her and when she looked over her shoulder she saw that the cave—their cave—had fallen in on itself. Boulders filled the entranceway sealing it off to all, no doubt crushing the hundreds or so inferi that resided.

Stunned, she snapped her neck back at Voldemort to see him tuck his wand into his pocket looking pissed but not as angry as before.

"There! You happy?"

Even if she could talk then she would've still been speechless.

"I spent decades on that army! Decades!" He raged. "I would've unleashed it too. I would've enslaved the world with them, in two years, tops. Is that good enough for you now? Mom?" He threw his arms at the mess of rocks, face wild with fury. "Will anything I ever do be good enough for you?!"

Furious at her silence, he took over the silencing charm and continued. "I do so much to prove my love for you! I go against every instinct in my soul for you! I don't murder around you! I—I stopped torturing elves for you because I know that upsets you! I do things that revolt my very being for you! Why isn't that enough?! Why don't you love me?!"

Ariel got onto her feet and slowly began to approach him.

"I'm the most powerful dark wizard that ever lived! You should be telling me I'm great every day! You should be spending all day telling me you're proud of me! You should be singing my praises! Literally! You—"

Ariel silenced him by quietly wrapping her arms around his waist and resting her head against his chest and whispering, "I'm so proud of you."

He was quiet for a moment, heart racing with the excitement of finally hearing what he was dying to hear, before he remembered who he was and he added, "You should be."

"I am." She lifted her head to unleash a dozen kisses onto his cheek and side of his face, squeezing him tight, telling him, over and over, "I'm so proud of you!"

He stood there trying to look embarrassed. "Mom, stop!" He protested without conviction. But she gave him a few more kisses and another tight embrace. Once she was done, she took a step back and appraised him. Her noseless, pale, gray-skinned, bald, heavily scarred, snake-looking, vicious, cruel, spiteful, narrow-minded, angry, too-smart-for-his-own-good, loving, witty, thoughtful, sweetheart son.

She never loved him more. Not even when he was the cutest orphan in the world.

"I can't believe you did that for me."

"Well yeah... not like I need them." He affirmed, trying to sound like his usual arrogant self. "I can still take over the world on my own."

Ariel sighed softly. She had hoped for too much.

"Sorry, mom. I can't change who I am."

"I know..."

"But...um...you know, I was thinking... it is pretty pathetic that my number one nemesis is still a child. I figured, eh, his birthday's a month from now. He can fight me like a man."

She beamed at him. "I appreciate that Tommy. I know how much you hate the kid."

"I love you more than I hate him. Which is saying something because I really, really, really fucking hate that kid."

Ariel laughed, tears in her eyes. Happy tears. Endeared tears. Relieved tears. "I love you so much, T—" She amended herself. He wasn't Tom. He hadn't been for years. "Lord Voldemort."

Epilogue:

Narcissa waited a few months after the war ended and a few months more until Snape's injuries healed to visit them. It was nearly six months when she dropped by Spinner's End.

"Narcissa so nice to see you! How are you? How is the family?"

"Better. Especially now that we have a wedding to look forward to."

"I know! You must be excited! Now you'll have two sons!"

"I am," Narcissa said with small but genuine joy. She went quiet for a second then explained, "Draco wanted me to drop an invitation to you two." She handed the envelope bearing her and Severus' names.

"Oh, that's so sweet! Tell him of course we'll be there. Severus is sleeping now but if you want—"

"Oh I don't mean to stay long I have so many errands to run—" With Lucius back in prison and her sister dead she was constantly filling her days with errands. "But there was another thing I wanted to drop off to you."

She pulled a book from the pockets of her robe and handed it to her. It was a copy of an old book, "The Seven Sirens of the Great Seas".

Ariel stared at the book the wind caught in her breath. She opened the cover and saw a stamp that read property of the libraries of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. She was already crying, spotting Tom Riddle's signature on the borrowed/ returned column. Wordlessly Narcissa opened the book to one page specifically which beheld a second envelope which bore the word 'mom'. "I found it when I was decluttering the house."

She tore it open hoping to find a letter, but found instead a golden badge with his former name on it, saying for special achievement, and a single photo. An animated drawing of a mermaid doing a swan dive.

It was all that remained of her son. And though her heart broke knowing he was gone, and from the weight of missing him, she knew it had to be this way. Because her love for him, though unending, could never erase the rage she felt knowing he was this monster running around turning children into orphans, enslaving the masses, and instilling hatred into the hearts of men like Narcissa's husband.

Ariel held the treasures to her chest and wept not out of guilt or shame or regret but out of love. Love for the boy in the cave nobody loved. Love for the young man in the cave who had to destroy himself to prove his self-worth. Love for the evil wizard who surprised her, time and time again, with his capacity to love.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I hope this is a better ending than the first one. I know I disappointed a few people with that depressing ending. I'm proud of both regardless because they both feel realistic to the story, or as realistic as a story about Voldemort learning how to love can be.

No one asked but this fanfic was heavily inspired by the play, Coriolanus by Shakespeare which has my favorite trope of all time in it, the bad guy who loves their mom trope. There's also a movie out of it, which coincidentally, the dude who plays Voldemort also directed/ acted in.

Anyway, here's to moms, who (sometimes) force us into being the better versions of ourselves.

And here's to my mom who I missed like crazy during this pandemic.