Chapter 4

Tears were still flowing from his eyes as he turned toward the voice. His mind unable to comprehend all of his memories, but still able to remember the all consuming guilt.

The female was trying to comfort him. However, her light touch caused a fire of pain to flash through his shoulder. His body was hurt. Why was he hurt? And why did his mind feel as if someone had filled it with cotton?

A startled laugh left him. How funny that someone had decided to put cotton inside his head. How had they managed to do that? The hilarious picture of someone pushing a large ball of cotton into his head, though his ear, had him clapping his hands in mirth. Too bad he soon had to stop his clapping because it was unusually painful.

The pretty female was talking to him. Still sputtering with laughter, he set his mind to listening to what she was saying. The previously mumbled noise he had heard turned into old fashioned English.

"Little one will you not let me take you with me?" she was asking him, likely having noticed that she had finally gained his attention. "This truly is too evil a place for an innocent child". At that his laughter died. He was reminded of his previous guilt. Had he been evil? Had he been an ugly, ugly monster tearing the world apart in revenge? He could not remember if it was so. He was unable to remember anything other than the all consuming remorse. What does the monster of guilt look like? He wondered. For sure it must be big, maybe green?

"Child, I am going to carry you now" the female interrupted his wonderings in a gentle voice. He just stayed staring at her.

As she lifted him, his body protested. It hurt. He cried out. "Shhh.. Little one, it will all be better soon." she soothed him "hold on Little one, well be there soon".

Prior to reaching the gate Vairë ran into her fellow guards, who had noticed her absence and stopped to wait for her. She was an excellent warrior, thus they were not very worried about her safety. They hurried towards her and the child she was carrying, surprise and curiosity visible on their faces. She only offered a few remarks on how she needed to hurry, and quickly walked past them in through the gates.

Soon she had reached the halls of healing. There she was greeted by healers, asking about her burden. "He is hurt, I am not fully aware of the extent of his injuries." The child was put on a bed and Vairë was asked to leave the room as the healers soon realised that they would need space to treat the very grave injuries of the child.

Without the black cloak and lying in a large white bed, the boy looked even more sickly than he had when she found him. Vairë was unable to clear her mind from the facts told to her by the healers. The fingers of the boys left hand were all broken, together with his wrist. Several of his ribs were cracked. He also had a deep slash wound on his left calf as well as several bruises. Who would be so cruel as to do something like this to a child?

"you know who, that is who I am. I am me" the child smiled at him. The state of the child's mind was fast becoming apparent to Thranduil. "Of course you are yourself child" he told the boy as gently as he could, "But how do people address you? What is your name?". At this, the boy gained an expression of deep concentration, seeming to find it difficult to answer the question. Then, after a long silence, something Tharanduil was unable to understand dimmed the eyes of the child and it said in a very small voice: "I am Voldemort".

When the whispered name passed the lips of the child, Thranduil froze. Although he could hear that the name was not of the Black Speech, it held the same kind of darkness as those cursed words. It was a very dark name. Through which circumstances had such a small child gotten such a name? How miserable those first years must have been for the child. Life among those using black speech was surely very unpleasant and not fit for any child, even more so a human child.

Taking in the broken and cracked fingers, leg and ribs and the severe bruises and open wounds of the child, Thranduil felt his spirit sink. How bleak an existence the child must have had. It was all just so very sad to him. How could the child go on and have a tolerable life, when his first years in this world had been so ugly. Was the mind of the boy already so tainted by sorrow and pain, that the child would be unable to function?

Thranduil would never admit it, but inside he was weeping for the tiny human child.