Title: Lux et Nox
Author: DTaishou
Rating: T
Summary: ONESHOT, 1st person POV
She reached down for me, her white hands shining with celestial light. She smiled at me, softly, almost kindly. Her fleeting form, wreathed with feathers and silken white, beckoned me to the light, to joy, to love, to kindness. She offered me a feather, a long white sleek feather.
"Come with me," she said. "We promise to love you."
She grasped my wrist with a sinister, gentle grasp, her black claws caressing my skin. She smirked at me with no kindness like the white one had, only dark secrets and cruel amusement. Her form refused to fade, and leathery black wings and curled fleets of darkness wrapped around me in coldness. She offered me no feather.
"Come to me," she said. "I will give you power."
One crossroad, two choices. I stood there, in robes of white splashed with black, black splashed with white, and looked from the Demon and the Angel. The Angel spread her arms to welcome me with a smile. The Demon crossed her arms with a smirk.
"You have but one choice. There is no going back," the Demon said silkily. She scrutinized her black claws.
"Make the right decision. We'll love you," the Angel blessed with a hopeful smile. I watched and thought. A chance at love, something he said I always needed, but I didn't want it.
"What will you offer me?" I demanded. The Demon gave a rasping, ominous laugh that contrasted with her darkly beautiful form. The Angel gazed at the Demon with a disappointed look.
"A true Slytherin. Salazar would be proud," the Demon hissed. I felt warm inside from the praise but brushed the feeling away. Flattery would be the worst way to accept an offer. Train my features, school my emotions. Blankness.
"What do you offer?" I asked again.
"Power," the Demon stated coldly. "Power to achieve your goal."
"Love, warmth, happiness. Everything you ever wished for when you were young. We will love you forever if you come with me," the Angel said with a smile. "Come with me and you will always be loved." The Angel spoke too much, tried too hard. Did she not want me?
"Am I too tainted to be accepted into the Light?" I asked. The Demon seemed unconcerned with my interest. The Angel smiled warmly but seemed uncomfortable.
"The taint may never disappear, but it will diminish if you come with me into the Light." Hope, love, joy, emotions I had yet to experience, but felt no need for. She spoke of a taint, a scar that would forever draw the masses back to my shadowed past. A scar, a taint, a blemish. Never seen, never heard, never spoken of. Never to disappear…
The Angel cast a hesitant glance at the nonchalant Demon. "You have used much Darkness…"
"Taint comes from choices," the Demon interrupted sharply. Her scarlet eyes flashed. The Angel overstepped her bounds. She tried too hard. She lost.
"Why should I choose Darkness?" I asked of the Demon. She turned to me.
"Do you believe in good and evil, boy?" she spat. I said nothing. This seemed to satisfy her, and I spoke.
"A man who is seen as good by the public is another man altogether in private. Good and evil are illusions." The Demon grinned a fanged, blood-dripping grin.
"Listen, and listen well, boy. Should you come with me, here unto I bestow you my first teaching." I listened intently.
"There is no good and evil," she hissed. "There is only power, and those too weak to seek it." The words were strong, I knew, and I believed her. She spoke shortly and to the point. No repetitions, no begging, no empty promises. The power to hide, ignore, destroy the taint.
"Power corrupts!" the Angel cried desperately. "Come with me, Tom! Together we will find a love in the world! TOM!" I closed my eyes and felt the shadows rush through me. I opened, and I saw in the Angel's eyes a reflection of myself. My emerald eyes were gone.
Blood.
Blood red.
Blood red eyes.
I grinned the dripping grin and turned from the Light, turned to the Darkness. The Demon smirked and wrapped herself around my form. She took the form of a snake. A black, red-eyed snake with sparse golden scales and a sinister hiss.
"No, not Tom." I turned to the Angel.
"Please, Tom! Come with me! Please, don't do this!" the Angel sobbed, and I found that I did not care. Her tears amused me, disgusted me, annoyed me. The snake hissed and I replied to the lovely Nagini, the Demon, the Snake.
"No, not Tom," I repeated. "Not Tom ever again. I despise that muggle name, and I shan't answer to it." I began down the path of Shadows. The Angel called after me but I continued walking.
"Tom!"
"Not Tom," I whispered again. "Never again, never Tom again. I won't be called that name by my fool muggle father, by those stupid Hogwarts students, by that barmy old Headmaster." Nagini hissed in amusement, agreement. "Not Tom."
"I am now, forever more, the Dark Lord Voldemort."