"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal."
From a headstone in Ireland
Blood. He wanted blood. No, he needed it.
Harry sighed and sat down, popped the cork off a vial and chugged it.
Bloodlust gone.
He was in the Room of Requirement once again, staring down at an open page.
Salazar's journal had been difficult to read. First, it was somehow written in Parseltongue, so it took concentration for the squiggly lines to morph themselves into words. He couldn't turn the Parseltongue into Roman characters, but he'd been very glad to discover that a translation charm worked for transforming the combination of Old English and Anglo-Saxon it was written in into a resemblance of modern English.
Proceeding to read, it wasn't long before the shock of its contents paralyzed him.
But then, the puzzle pieces began to fall into place.
Decades of research have come and gone. The facts are all laid out before me. I have proof behind every scrap of knowledge I presented to them, yet still they refuse to believe.
Rowena has seen fit to discard my theories. Despite her intelligence, she cannot seem to see that the muggle race she is so fascinated with is slowly killing us. Helga and Godric simply do not have enough reason between them. They go along with whatever Rowena says.
The muggles fear and loathe our kind, that is a fact; but we have hidden away from them. No, it is not their hate that will kill us.
It is their blood.
They rejected this simple theory, only because it threatened their own ideals: Each wizard child is born with magic in their blood. It is part of the child's inheritance from their parents.
These days, there are more and more magicless squibs born from pureblood families. My research had led me to believe that they are a direct result of inbreeding among the pureblooded families, as every case shows.
These squibs are then cast into the muggle world and forgotten about; however, a study of several new 'muggleborn' students has cast something truly surprising into the light. Every single muggleborn child is distantly descended from an outcast squib. This is one of the things that Helga condemns me for. I took the blood for research without the students' permission…
On another side of the issue are the wizards that choose to breed with muggles, disgusting in their habits as they are. While the children of these unions generally have no ill effects when it comes down to their magic, their children and children's children show a gradual weakening as they continue to marry into the muggle race.
I have come to a conclusion that, I must admit, terrifies me.
While muggleborns are the products of inbred magic finally having enough new blood to spark up again, children of wizard/muggle unions are weak. Their blood becomes so pathetic as to no longer be able to retain magic.
I do not know why, but it is so.
The wizards around me will not listen. They do not agree.
We have built a school to last a millennium…for a race that may not exist in two thousand years…
He had to show Tom.
His quill dripped ink onto the desk, but Harry simply wiped it away.
He had no clue what to say. Even if he did get Tom to meet with him, he wasn't naive enough to think for a moment that he'd welcome him with open arms.
Harry squeezed his eyes shut. The worst that could happen is that Tom would try to kill him, fail, and Harry would go find someone to pass his curse off to so that he would not be a burden on the other.
He sighed. It was a principally miserable prospect. The quill met parchment. He wrote.
Come to the graveyard tomorrow night.
I will be alone.
H.P.
Voldemort stared down at the letter in disbelief for a moment.
"What the hell?"
Did the stupid Gryffindor boy want a 'final showdown,' or something of the sort? Had Dumbledore's brainwashing finally gotten to him? Or was the child-hero really naïve enough to believe that he would win, in some sort of 'good over evil' cant?
He stared at the letter some more, forcing his lipless mouth to close from its slack position. It could be a trick; but then, it was an incredibly stupid one. He doubted anyone on the Light side would have gone along with the boy on a venture such as this one.
Voldemort crumpled the letter in his hand. Perhaps Potter just had a death wish. The Dark Lord would be happy to comply.
It never occurred to him to wonder how the snowy owl had found him, so lost in thought was he.
Harry fell back into the class routine easily, having done the same coursework already. It seemed that not much had changed in the way of schooling over the course of fifty years.
The other students avoided him, staring when he passed by. They were afraid of him blowing up at them like he had at Hermione and Ron. Harry sneered to himself. Their fear permeated the air whenever he came near.
The Daily Prophet, eager for more gossip about the Boy-Who-Lived, had published another article wondering as to his sanity, only thinly veiled behind a report of his recent behavior. It had been published by a writer he didn't recognize. Harry briefly wondered how they'd gotten their information so quickly, but then decided he didn't give a damn. The wizarding world could stew in their own speculations.
Harry was too impatient. He desperately wanted to see Tom.
He was nervous; terrified, even. There came the question of what he'd do if Tom did accept him.
Would he betray the Light side?
Harry didn't think too deeply on that: he was almost afraid of the answer.
Voldemort strode down the hall of his manor. His silken black robes flowed behind him, the delicate fabric giving the sense of trailing darkness wherever he went.
He rounded corner, coming upon the figure of a short, watery-eyed man.
"Wormtail," he hissed. The man jumped and spun around, bowing nearly to the ground.
"M-my lord," he stuttered. Voldemort sneered down at the sniveling weakling before turning away. He had no time for such a fool.
"I am leaving. Remember to feed Nagini," At the look of utter terror on Wormtail's face, he chuckled darkly. "I have told her not to eat you," he turned and headed to the Apparation point in the manor, "…yet."
The last, Wormtail didn't hear.
It took a great amount of power to Apparate silently, but Voldemort did so with ease. He stood in the shadows of the tree line that surrounded the graveyard. The night was dim in the light of a crescent moon and the air had a slight nip to it. Across the clearing he could see the outlines of tombstones.
Voldemort extended his senses and searched, his eyes raking over every shadow and possible hiding place.
There was no one else here. He walked forward silently. There was no sense in bringing the Death Eaters on this little trip. They were incompetent in anything but battle, and delicate things like waiting to catch the enemy off guard often escaped them.
Would the boy even come? Voldemort had to admit that his curiosity was peaked. He hadn't even come across any traps yet.
Finally he arrived, his feet knowing instinctually where to take him.
Ten meters away, his hated father's gravestone still stood. At the foot of the stone, a crouched figure sat. As Voldemort took in the figure's dark outline, something started to nag at him. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and he waved it away before he could analyze it further. He decided to announce his presence.
"Potter," he said. The menace in his voice was enough to surprise even himself. The figure stiffened, then slowly rose from his sitting position. The Dark Lord found his breath catching in his throat as braided hair came into the light. There was something so…familiar about this.
Then Potter turned around, and Voldemort let loose a choked noise. Coal black hair shone in the moonlight, a gold gaze burned into his, and on his brow was the renowned lightning scar.
Voldemort couldn't react. The face that had blurred and faded with time, as all memories do, now reigned with stark clarity in his mind.
It was the instantly recognizable face of his lover from more than fifty years before…
"Tom," Potter spoke softly.
He could feel his carefully bridled memories slipping from his control and crashing about in his head, causing pain with the recollections they evoked. Unexpected rage washed through him as he saw the eyes turned on him flicker from green to gold and back again.
"This is not possible."
That was the only warning the boy received before the Dark Lord smashed into his way into barriers that weren't even there, colliding into Potter's mind with the force of a tidal wave.
He didn't know that Harry had already taken down all his Occlumency barriers and pushed certain thoughts and memories to the forefront. He knew what Voldemort would be looking for.
They both collapsed as the void of his mind sucked them in.
At first, images came at him from all sides. Soon they subsided, giving way to a string of memories. Soon Voldemort would know the truth. He wasn't in control of this mind, Harry was.
His first stop was the memory of a familiar office and a silver figure risen from a basin.
Voldemort strained to hear the words that came through to him as if muffled by a wool blanket.
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches ... Born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies ... And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not ... And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives ... The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies... "
There it faded, and he was taken away before he could see more. Voldemort's mind worked quickly to comprehend what was said. Before he could think further he was thrown into another memory.
He was walked through a few memories of Harry's childhood, then moved through important events all through Harry's school years. All the trials the boy had faced were paraded before Voldemort. Finally the scene of his Turning came to the front.
"You accepted my offer Aspen. Why?"
"I…I need my own path now." His eyes burned with a determination Voldemort could see from far away.
Then he came upon the boy's memories as Aspen Noir. They were all the little things: the way their hands brushed when they worked together on a potion, the way Aspen would notice Tom's appreciative glances when he thought he wasn't looking, how he loved the kisses Tom stole from him in the privacy of their room.
There were bigger things too: Aspen walking in on Tom in the bathroom and the empathy he'd felt, Aspen's gratitude to him the morning after the Halloween incident, and the time he'd found the book.
The book…Voldemort's mind reeled back in shock. He hadn't known.
Harry hadn't noticed it the first time he saw it. He'd been too busy stumbling and coughing up blood to see Tom shove it under his pillow. The second time he saw it, at was peeking out of the not-quite-closed drawer of Tom's nightstand. Harry gave in to his insatiable curiosity and picked it up. It was a tiny leather-bound tome, dusty and untitled. He found it odd.
What interest would Tom have in a book like this?
He knew he really shouldn't be invading Tom's privacy in such a manner and though he fought it, his curiosity won out. He opened the book to the first page.
Horcruxes
Harry froze, the book nearly falling from limp fingers. The very…evil the word possessed cut through him like an ice-covered dagger. With uncontrollably trembling fingers, he read the next page, then the next.
Killing to split your soul and seal it away? Supposed immortality? It was only thinly veiled that the price would be your mind.
It all clicked into place with the suddenness of a lightning bolt. This was what Tom would--Voldemort had done to gain his immortality; but what would drive him to such utter madness? It was made quite clear by the book that such a ritual was a curse, not a blessing. Harry liked to think he knew Tom well enough to know that he would never attempt such a thing as he was now. That still left the question unanswered.
He sighed and put the book down. No matter how much he wanted to ask Tom about it, he couldn't change the future. It was best to leave it be rather than strain their relationship over some unavoidable factor, no matter how much the knowledge hurt him.
Harry gave the book one last glance before leaving. He needed to calm down before he saw Tom again. The Room would be just the place.
The memories came again, rushing by faster and faster in a overflow of feelings. Then he came to the final scene, where two boys sat sipping Butterbeer and holding hands under the table. Then came that dreaded scream.
It was too much for him. Voldemort wrenched away and fell with a snap back into his own mind.
When Voldemort came to, he was his knees in the damp grass. He looked up to see the young man crouched on the grass before him, eyes eerily wide with concern. He noticed they were both breathing raggedly from the strain Voldemort's attack had created.
"Aspen…" he spoke the name slowly. He'd not said it in many years and it's memory still sent a twinge of pain through him. The young man perked up, leaning closer. Hesitantly, he reached up and brushed his jaw. His pale fingers met warm skin: it was no illusion.
The love of his life was alive, and he was Harry Potter.
Aspen reached up to grasp his hand, but Voldemort pulled it away.
"Please…" he hissed quietly, "please leave." He needed time to deal with this. Time to think, reflect and decide.
Voldemort nearly winced when the other flinched, but one look at his face told him the other understood. Aspen was weeping.
He watched as the other closed his eyes and dissolved in a manner that stabbed him painfully with memories of death.
All Voldemort wanted to do at the moment was curl up and cry, but he wasn't even sure if this body could shed tears.
He Disapparated.
A/n: This chapter is for EmpyrealFantasy who, in all of her uber fantastic royal yayness, betaed this for me in twenty minutes. Thanks soooo much!
Voldemort was pulled through Harry's mind so easily because Harry took him by surprise and ended up guiding him to the memories he wanted anyway. Plus, Harry has deceptive strength.
Please review!