DISCLAIMER - I DO NOT OWN HARRY POTTER!!!

THE CEREMONY

Chapter Six

Powerman

The residents of the old London street, Grimmauld Place had changed over the years. The years before the war had been a bustling residential district for lower middle class merchants and traders. It had since developed into a suburb for young professionals and their families. On a hot summer day like the one today when a tall mysterious stranger appeared suddenly at the top of the street, children would happily ride down the street on their cycles and skateboards and make a lot of noise much to the consternation of some of the older residents.

Mr. T. M. Riddle of course knew that one house in this street was older than others. It had been here since the middle of the 19th Century when the Blacks had sold out their last country mansion and had to take to living in the then abandoned street it had purchased and named Grimmauld Place. Of course none of the other houses knew about that or knew anything about the house. The neighbours had simply forgotten that the bungalow of Number 12 had existed. It had been full of Muggle repelling charms, an Unplottable Jinx and a Bedazzlement Hex that ensured people forgot their way when they came near it and went back to where they came from if they happen to gaze upon the old house.

The tall man had come here for the first time in the years of his work at Borgin and Burkes. Mrs. Elladora Black had insisted on the purchase of another cursed necklace for use on one of her neighbours. He had also arranged for the Blacks to purchase a Goblin made silver goblet which they arranged to have the Black family crest inscribed on. In his last meeting with the Black family, he sold them to an enchanting music box that was filled with mermaid music. Tom personally disliked the Blacks. He found them vulgar and full of bad taste. He had seen that the Blacks suffered from the ill effects of decades of pureblood interbreeding and had developed serious mental instabilities and irrational impulses. Old Orion Black was a frank bore and his wife, his cousin Walburga was a thorough nightmare to endure, Elladora Black was a foolish Muggle hater with whom one could have no possibility of intelligent conversation. The exceptions for him, were the three Black Sisters, children of Cygnus and Druella Black - Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda. He had known the eldest best and the youngest least. The middle sister he knew through young Lucius Malfoy, a boy he had befriended since his return to England.

He paused as he stepped in front of the door. He saw the reflection of his face on the silver knocker. His face had transformed badly in the last occassion he had crafted Horcruxes. He had three objects to choose from on that day when he had again harvested two seperate soul particles and transferred both into the two objects he had collected that day in the forest of Albania. He had found the Diadem right where Helena had left it all those thousand years ago. He had known that his exposure to such dark magic would risk in some side effects but still the sight of his burnt charred face and the whiteness of his hair was more than he could endure. He had tried to recover his features but to little avail. At best he could perform some temporary disguise. His eyes had lost the gray beauty of his former days. He was no more the handsome orphan boy. Still it hadn't mattered to his followers, who he continued to seduce with his display and command of power and mastery of dark magic.

The door opened after his short knock and a tall woman with heavy lidded eyes and a haughty demeanour stared into the gaze. Tom caught sight of her shining black hair as she bent her head in admiration and ardour as she gazed at him. Tom smiled as he entered the house of Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Of course Bellatrix hadn't noticed any change, he thought with a smile. He had met her for the first time since his return only a few years before at Rodolphus Lestrange's house. Before then, he remembered her as a little girl as a commanding elder sister forever teasing her blonde sister and tormenting the old family house elf and she had genuinely impressed him in that first meeting when she had stolen with command a doll the little sister had been playing with.

"So Miss Black," asked the tall handsome man.

"Miss Black," she piped angrily rounding up to him. She paused as she took in the handsome appearance of the tall man with long black hair and gray eyes. "Everyone calls me Bellatrix!" she finished in a softer voice.

"Bellatrix," he repeated carefully. "Can I call you Bella?"


She shrugged her shoulders with a pout. He was reminded unmistakably of his younger self.

"I am sure your mother can get you another doll. You hardly need one for yourself," he said smoothly.

"Why do you care? Are you a baby sitter or something?" she asked mutinously.

He had laughed, "Why do you have to steal the doll?"

"I took it because I wanted it," she said nastily. "And I'll have what I want and nothing will stop me." They stared into each other and Bellatrix's face went into a sneer, it didn't complete it because she had noticed a glint of red in her guest's eyes.

"How did you do that?" she asked aloud in wonder.

"Do what?" asked Tom smoothly.

"Make your eyes go red!"

"It's a secret," he said with a grin. And yet Bellatrix saw through that grin, another face, more cruel and colder than that of the affable young man who did business with her father and her aunts.

"What's your name?" she asked him.

"My name...my real name?" he asked mockingly, raising his eyebrow. "It is Lord Voldemort. You will do well to repeat it to no one else and you will do just as well to make sure you never forget it."

Lord Voldemort, that's how they knew him in Albania, Georgia, Ukraine, Greece and Germany. The countries he had travelled to since he left England after the death of that Smith woman. It hadn't been easy at first. It was a smart plan he thought, find out the remains of the Grindelwald days, any of his surviving followers who had gone to hiding or had taken to petty crime in their way and learn all he could from those broken old warlocks and witches. He had not accounted for the active persecution and denial institutionalized in these regions. Many of the most respected and authorative pureblood families had actively and openly supported Gellert Grindelwald in his days only to lapse pathetically into claiming bewitchment and coercion and return to their former glory as respectful institutions. This made them harder to talk with. But fortunately he had mastered the art of blackmail by then and was more than able to access secrets and dead skeletons in forgotten closets. He had lived under many assumed names in that region and lived on stolen money that no Goblin would store in Gringotts. But it had been worth it. He had learnt more about magic than he would ever learn had he stayed in England. More than that he had life experience in meeting with renegade Goblins, Hags, Giants and unbound Dementors. He knew how to deal with them, how to make them yield to him.

Of course eventually he returned to England and things have picked up again. His great plan hadn't been forgotten amongst his old Slytherins who had thought he had disappeared and absconded but now found him transformed and more terrible than ever. It took them little persuasion to take the Dark Mark he had created for communication amongst his followers and informers in Greece. They even began calling him the Dark Lord instead of Lord Voldemort as he had initially insisted. His own followers, began to fear using his name.

"Forgive me, my Lord, if the house is too much of a mess," said Bellatrix courteously. "Would you like to go to the dining room?"

"Lead the way," nodded Voldemort graciously. "Are you alone?"

She laughed, "No one is alone in this house, my Lord? Auntie Walburga and Elladora have gone out to meet Mrs. Meliflua but Cissy and Dromeda are upstairs playing Wizards' Chess. And then my two little cousins are sulking in their rooms."

"Little cousins?" asked Voldemort.

"Oh yes, Auntie Walburga gave birth to two little boys," she drawled indifferently. "I don't like either of them, though. Especially the eldest, little snot he is. I wasn't that impolite when I was his age."

Voldemort didn't refrain from smirking.

"But mostly they stay in their room, so they won't bother us!"

They entered into the empty dining room and Bellatrix placed Voldemort on the chair at the end and herself on his left.

"So master, did you consider what I asked of you?"

"Rodolphus will not like it!" he replied carefully.

She sneered, "If that ugly git wants me to marry him, he'll like what I tell him to like."

"Maybe," replied Voldemort, shrugging his head to one side, "I can't say I have too many women who have taken the Dark Mark. There are only four women so far. Alecto Carrow..."

"She's dumber than a toenail, that one," shrieked Bellatrix.

Voldemort smiled, "Then there's Mathew Nott's sister Eleanor. She was the one behind those two Muggle killings last week. The other two are Drusillia Parkinson and Margaret Wilkes."

"I'm better than those three," said Bellatrix mutinously. "I know magic better than them, I can do curses of such power that their hair would scalp just contemplating it."

"Yes, Bella, I know. You were a very good student," said Voldemort with a cold smile.

"Well then, what more do I have to prove to you, master?" she sighed as she leant towards his face. "Even that McGonagall hag who taught Transfiguration had to say I was one of her best students. I did not master that magic just to be married away to Rodo Lestrange and sprog his babies?"

Voldemort stared at her, "It's not Rodolphus that is a problem. It's a question of will. You see, Bella, if you really didn't love Rodolphus and you didn't want to marry him, you would have found a way of doing it your way, having what you want. But you didn't make any real effort did you? No, just idle shrieking and begging to whoever who would listen."

She remained silent as she listened to this. She's rather like that Zabini girl I met in my sixth year. Trapped but making sure to stay in the prettiest of available traps. But she has more nerve, Bella does.

"I did want to marry, Rodo," she said quietly. "We don't have as much money as we used to. The Blacks. The Lestranges have more money than any other family. More than the Malfoys even."

"And Lestrange has no head for business and will need his wife to look after things," nodded Voldemort in understanding. Rodolphus Lestrange he had known to be a fool, even at Hogwarts yet he had been easy meat to bend to his will and his money and authority was one of the best platforms for his rise here in England.

"But I don't want to be under his thumb," said Bellatrix in a pleading voice. "If I had the Mark as well, I shall be an equal."

"No you shall be his superior, his guide and a seeing-eye on the Lestrange finances on my behalf," muttered Voldemort quietly.

"But master, does that mean?" she asked hopefully.

"Yes," nodded Voldemort with a smile. "You are far too valuable for me, Bellatrix, to remain unmarked from me." He then removed his newspaper from inside and unfolded it carefully. "You shall also have your chance for an initiation. Do you see this photograph? Doesn't he look familiar?"

Bellatrix looked towards the article and let out a seethe of rage. It was on the fourth page of the Daily Prophet and there was a picture of the man seated on the head of the table, outside the shop of Borgin and Burkes.

"That was taken when I first returned to England, on the day before I went to meet Dumledore," said Voldemort carefully. "If I had known I was being photographed..."

Bellatrix read the article aloud,

"THE RISE OF LORD VOLDEMORT

by Demetrius Walpole.

The name Lord Voldemort sounds much like those made up demons sensitive mothers relate to their spoilt children urging them to behave. It is the name of a mysterious strange sorceror who over the last few years has been accused as a source of terror by some of our most respected witches and wizards.


Edgar Bones, 46, of Upper Flagley, mentions anonymous owls he had recieved a few years ago written by a wizard who claimed to possess hidden secrets and old family skeletons and wished to converse with Mr. Bones on private matters. "It was blackmail. Trying to tell me that he knows who I am, who my family are, where we live. It was very cheap and vulgar. It didn't have any name but the writer of that owl claimed to be Lord Voldemort. Whoever, this "Lord" is, he needs to remember that writing in the third person is little more than cheap theatre and that we wizards don't have any Lords or Ladies. We leave that to the Muggles."

Bones's angry response is mirrored by similar reactions from Herbert MacMillan, Bartemius Crouch, a Junior Minister in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and Jerome McKinnon. All of whom who recieved similar letters from a self-styled Lord Voldemort. Yet investigation from this reporter has found out that the name of Lord Voldemort is older than the small community of our local warlocks. Wilhelm Walbrook, the German representative of the International Confederation of Wizards mentions that the name of Lord Voldemort is known in the Central and East European lands.

"It started a decade ago. Many of the families said they were being blackmailed. This man in a hood came looking for them, wanted money from them. Or some magical object or the other that disappeared. He called himself Lord Voldemort. The German Ministry of Magic came closer last year. We rounded up a gang of thieves and hags who ran a protection racket, blackmailing some of the individuals and paying money to help along those whose businesses were falling off the wagon or removing competition. We entered their base and we found that every one, from the top to the bottom were under an Imperius curse of a power we had never seen. But even more frightening was what was in the cellar. We found what we thought was a group of poor men carrying cauldrons full of some potion. They were Inferi."

The use of the Inferius has long been banned in Britain and the magic involved in re-animating a corpse is considered to be the amongst the deepest and most profane dark magic."

"It's also very time consuming," said Voldemort dully. "But I had to do something with those bodies. Couldn't just let them lie there, could I?"

"Walbrook continues, "We found one suspect, Jacobus Dolohov, whose brother Antonin was a brutal assassin hired by Gellert Grindelwald. He killed himself in prison before anyone could question him. He kept repeating in German, "Lord Voldemort will kill me for being captured".

Walbrook also maintains that the same wizard has operated in strict code and secrecy and that many of his associates claim him to be nameless and inhuman. As if they were possessed by an entity. "What this wizard wants is more than mere money, he seems to be consciously creating a mystique. This is most peculiar."

Members of the Auror Office at the British Ministry believe that the Lord Voldemort is at best a petty criminal styling himself into a Second Grindelwald. They dismiss the possibility that he will become a serious threat. Jonathan Dawlish is quoted as saying, "This Lord Voldemort can't do anything serious to any Ministry with a squad of bewitched servants and walking dead people. He needs to gather an army. And you can't gather an army in secret. If he has then, by now he would have been caught by our finest and most intelligent Aurors."

Voldemort and Bellatrix exchanged the briefest glances before breaking into laughter. Bellatrix recovered and continued further.

Alastor Moody, however, believes otherwise. "All the Ministries want to do is keep things quiet because they don't want another Grindelwald. But then I was a young Auror when he started in the 30s. I remember how nobody thought he would get far or big. Well the same thing is happening now and people haven't changed. We need Constant Vigilance and stop this Voldemort person."

One wizard who claims to have seen the Dark Lord Voldemort is Jacob Thornton who runs an apothecary in Somerset. He claims to have seen the wizard on the wharf talking to the feared werewolf Fenrir Greyback. "I had to be quiet you know and keep my head down. There was this guy who even Greyback seemed afraid to talk to. He called him "My Lord" and "master" and he spoke about Lord Voldemort. I didn't know whether he was someone working for this Voldemort who Greyback also called Lord or not. I was really scared. Then I thought he was talking to himself in the third person. They mentioned about some plan and he said that it had to be done quickly. Then next day I read about one of my old friends from the village, John Lupin - his family was attacked that day by Greyback's thugs. If I had said something to someone maybe I'd have done something. But I called the Auror Office by Floo and that bloke said I was seeing things and ought to to go to sleep. This was three to four years back."

Mr. Thornton by a stroke of coincidence identified Lord Voldemort from one of the Daily Prophet's archive photographs rather than the Auror photographs. "That's the one, same face, same eyes."

"That's enough, Bellatrix," said Voldemort coldly. "Mr. Walpole is rather gifted at research. Too gifted. You must dispose of him and this Thornton fellow."

"But master, the Lestranges are one of the Prophet's sponsors," said Bellatrix excitedly. "We can simply arrange for him to get fired and get this article removed."

"Yes but it's still there in whichever house that has a copy of this newspaper," said Voldemort furiously. "The damage is done. As a sponsor, it must be easy for you Bella to arrange a meeting with Walpole and the other man. Kill them both, then. Only," a cruel smile stretched across his lips, "make sure that it is done in a way that they know who is behind it. Do it in a way that returns both bodies to the public but make it clear in the form and the manner of the deed, that no one will say what doesn't need to be said."

Bellatrix nodded. Voldemort than held out his arm and Bellatrix extended hers and placed it in his. The touch of the woman's hand in his felt strange to Voldemort. He raised his wand in his other hand and her sleeve moved upwards revealing a strong pale arm, hard but refined like a sculpture of the Huntress Artemis. Bellatrix did not refrain from blushing as Voldemort held her bare arm.

"Do you swear fealty to the Dark Lord Voldemort?"

"I swear to the Heir of Slytherin," she intoned slowly.

A thin green flame shot out of his wand and tangled around her forearm.

"You shall bear my mark for life. You shall come to my side at my will." Another flame leapt out of the wand and joined the coiling tangle around her forearm. "And this mark will be permanent, never escaping your corpse for all eternity." Another flame leapt out of his wand.

Voldemort moved his wand carefully and hissed, "Morsmordre!"

She felt a burning pain on her forearm and she yelled slightly before the pain began cooling rapidly. She looked at her forearm and found the mark of a skull with a snake crawling out of it's mouth.

"You must hide this mark," he said forcefully. "It is best that few know about the organization and function of the Death Eaters and the uses of that symbol."

There was a sound of footsteps. Both Voldemort and Bella turned to the door of the dining room. Voldemort raised his wand and narrowed his eyes. Bellatrix rose to the door and opened it. A tall boy with long black hair looked at her with insolence.

"So cousin," said the boy. "Having a private lunch here?"

"None of your business if I do, Sirius," snapped Bellatrix, giving the boy a look of pure loathing.

Sirius ignored her and stepped into the room and looked at Lord Voldemort who quirked an eyebrow at the young man he had never seen in the house. If he hadn't known it for a fact, he would never have suspected that this boy was the son of Walburga Black, that mad ugly woman who passed none of her traits on to this boy.

"You Rodolphus?" asked Sirius rudely.

"Forgive me for my cousin's insolence, master," exclaimed Bellatrix hurriedly.

"Master?" Sirius turned his head at her quickly and then shifted towards Voldemort. "Why do you call him master? Who are you?"

Bellatrix looked taken aback at this. Under no circumstances was she to reveal her guest's true identity to the youngest Black children.

"H...He is...that is to say, he is,"

"I am Marvolo Gaunt," said Voldemort smoothly. "I was an old tutor of Miss Bellatrix and a dear friend of her fiancée Rodolphus."

"Oh," said Sirius with a shrug. He then looked at him with excitement, "You'll be teaching at Hogwarts."

Voldemort laughed coldly, "No. I will not. When do you expect to go to Hogwarts?"

"This year," said Sirius. "I got my letter yesterday and we're going to get our supplies this week."

"Well, best of luck, young Sirius," replied Voldemort softly.

"Did you study at Hogwarts?" asked Sirius curiously.

"Master Gaunt does not wish to hear any more questions, Sirius?" shrieked Bellatrix angrily.

"Calm down, Bella. Why don't you go and tell Rodolphus about the news," he said nodding to her. "I shall talk to my young friend here." Bellatrix looked at the pair mutinously before disapparating.

"Yes, boy I went to Hogwarts. Years and years ago," said Voldemort lazily. "I was in Slytherin just like your cousin!"

"Oh," said Sirius with a drop in his voice. "The whole family is in Slytherin."

Voldemort looked at the boy with curiosity. He walked to the window in the table and looked out to the children playing outside. "Mother never lets us leave the house, says those kids out there are Muggles."

"They are Muggles, Sirius," answered Voldemort thoughfully. "You want to play with them, don't you?"

"It just gets lonely being trapped here all the time," said Sirius in a burst. "The most fun me and Regulus get is when Mum is outside. When she's home it's always about how to do this and how to do that, what to touch and what not to touch. There's not much you can play with. Unless you count a House-Elf that spies on you all day. I can't wait to get to Hogwarts and be away from this place."

Voldemort shrugged. "I didn't grow up with a family, young Sirius so maybe I cannot understand your resentment."

"Yeah well, believe me, family's no fun," answered Sirius with a sneer.

"Well I can't say I was too happy with my family either when I found out about them," said Voldemort coldly. "Maybe we have that in common. But if it matters that much to you, you can go your own way Sirius. You don't need to be held back by your family."

Sirius stared at the tall man who rose to his feet and made for the exit. He turned towards Sirius one last time adding, "It's all a matter of will, boy. The will to be your self. To do what you believe. It's the very few who do those things, the rest live out the course made for them. I made my own course as did your sister and her friends." He looked at Sirius carefully. "Maybe if you have the will, Sirius, you will join us."

A few months later, he found out from Bellatrix that her cousin Sirius had been sorted in Gryffindor House. Her shrieking and insults heaped on her cousin amused the Dark Lord to no end.

"Can you imagine the dishonour that he has brought on the Black family, my Lord?" she began whining during one dinner at the Lestranges house. "He always was a little snot, Sirius but I never imagined him becoming a Gryffindor." The word wrestled out of her mouth as if it was an ugly worm. "He's the first Gryffindor Black since...since ever!!! We've had some Ravenclaws and one or two misguided Hufflepuffs but a Gryffindor?!"

"Maybe he took my advice too well," said Voldemort smoothly.

"What advice, master?" asked Bellatrix sharply.

"He complained to me about living at home with his family," said Voldemort lazily. "I said if it mattered that much he can go his own way and not let it bother him. I never expected he would take it so literally. In any case, I don't see why it's such a big deal."

"Big deal, master?" asked Bellatrix in wonder. "He's a Gryffindor." She repeated the words as if to make it clear to her master what that meant.

"Yes, but he's a Gryffindor because he wants to defy and rebel against his stifling family," said Voldemort lazily. "Not much different from most of the Slytherin kids I looked after at Hogwarts. Including dear Rodolphus who didn't want to be a Ravenclaw like Father."

"His letters to my sister Andromeda don't even reveal the slightest shame," continued Bellatrix vainly. "He keeps talking about his new Gryffindor friends, some boy named Petticoat or something and always this Potter."

"Potter?" asked Voldemort curiously.

"Sorry, master, I won't continue further about my cousin -"

"It's not up to you to decide what is interesting to me," retorted Voldemort coldly. "Is this Potter related to your aunt Dorea?"

"No, master," answered Bellatrix forcefully. "He's the son of the Healer, Julius Potter. Aunt Dorea married his brother Charlus but the two of them don't get along."

Voldemort frowned thoughtfully, "And Sirius is good friends with the boy. I wondered if the Potters at Godric's Hollow would be receptive to my invitations, if their son is befriending a Black then he might be receptive later on."

"But master, they're only eleven..."

"Seven years later, they'll be fully qualified for my organization, Bella," said Voldemort firmly. "I'm always interested in young people, Bella. So useful for keeping your branches fresh and lively, so much more hard working and attentive and once under the right guidance, a great gift to command. Owl Lucius and ask him to keep an eye on your cousin but also to do so at a distance."

Voldemort began reading the Daily Prophet trying to judge the impact of his most recent activities in the headlines. The Daily Prophet talked of a mysterious attack in the North Sea that left the Ministry in a daze and at a loss as to who was behind the attack. The fourth page was the crime report which discussed the recent rise in attacks from cursed objects and poisons. How Christmas gifts were filled with poisonous and venomous objects that finally caused a death last week. And whether or not it was connected to the mysterious Lord Voldemort. He had neither the desire nor the inclination to commit murder by Dark Arts junkshop items but all the same, he liked the attention. He smiled as he read the article, he rather liked the new crime reporter, Herbert Flannagan. He was most unintelligent compared to Demetrius Walpole. Walpole no longer wrote for the Prophet. His body was discovered one day inside a Venamous Tentacula pot kept outside the Daily Prophet. (Voldemort rather liked Bellatrix's idea of stuffing the page of the article in his ears.) Since then the Prophet has kept away from straight reporting and become an organ for public hysteria, serving of course as a source for more hysteria. This pleased him.

"Bellatrix take out your arm!" said Voldemort forcefully. She unrolled her left arm out of her sleeve revealing the Dark Mark. Voldemort placed his fingers upon it and watched the mark go from red to black. Soon the Death Eaters would come to the Lestrange study. "Take your place, Bellatrix."

She nodded and walked to the door. She was clad in her dark black robes and she placed her mask in front of it and opened the door. Slowly several black robed figures entered the room, they moved towards the man sitting by the table chair and kissed the hem of his robes. Voldemort nodded one by one as they all assembled. He went over their names - Mathew and Eleanor Nott, Marcus Rosier, the Lestrange brothers, Antonin Dolohov, Archie Travers, Michael Mulciber, Terence Jugson, Drusillia Parkinson, Margaret Wilkes, Alecto and Amycus Carrow.

"Welcome brothers. It seems that the time is coming for us to openly declare ourselves. We have hidden in the dark the past few years, hidden under the guises of pranksters, petty thieves and crooks. They take Lord Voldemort for a children's ghost tale," a wave of angry noise broke out amongst the crowd. "They think we aren't serious in making a new world for witches and wizards - doing away with the Mudbloods and the halfbreeds. Well it strikes me that the time has come for us to raise the bar." He waved his wand and a pile of scrolls apparated into the room. With a flick of his wrist they each directed themselves to a Death Eater. Each contained separate instructions. "You shall disapparate to the place mentioned in the scroll and perform the directed function. It must be carried out at a specific time in the right place. I expect all of you to do very well."

"Now after you are finished, you must send my mark into the sky. The Dark Mark." They all unfurled their arms to reveal the tatoo to the Dark Lord. Voldemort looked at each mark, all of them binding these witches and wizards to his services. "The incantation of the spell is Morsmodre, it needs you to focus on the symbol in your arm and a will to to burn this mark into the air of the world. If the Aurors come running, then do not engage them. I wish this plan to proceed without any captures."

The Death Eaters muttered in assent. Voldemort looked towards them and said slowly, "I myself will arrive on the scene in the end, for the final phase of our plan. I will lead you all personally in that moment, for I fully expect trouble from the Aurors and the Ministry then. You shall all see for yourself a taste of the power of Lord Voldemort."

This spread a greater wave of excitement among the black robed group. Voldemort smiled indulgently.

They disapparated at once. And after nodding towards Bellatrix, he disapparated. He arrived at his cave. A cave he had discovered as a child and which he made his personal kingdom. As a boy the natural beauty of the rock formations, the sculpture of the stalactites captured his imagination. It was a place full of promise for adventure, for desire and for beauty. Above all, it was desolate and empty. It existed for a long time before his mother and his father, before the Gaunts, remaining untouched since the land of the Founders. It was his own private haven and a place in which he felt boundless solitude. To everyone else of course, it was a place of danger, promising horror and death.

Voldemort walked towards the lake inside the cave and sat by the rocks. He wasn't thinking anything or plotting anything new. He sat there merely to enjoy the soothing silence and emptiness of the small cave. He never slept anymore. He had no more dreams. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, he thought with a laugh. Of course he had made sure that he would never die and so he had ensured that he would never sleep again. His body did not need sleep or rest, the power enforced from creating the Horcruxes and other self-made potions had given it the needed strength. He didn't particularly care for the silly dreams of snakes and statues and red unicorns a great deal but it was something that was natural, that was expected of all human beings. The constant energy he had to exude nowadays, the people he had to meet day after day, the image he had to carve of his great wrath and power often made him feel tense and nervous. It irked him to no end that after all these years of seeking power, of killing and torture, he was unable to simply turn it all off and rest his mind. The purpose human beings derived from a night's good sleep.

Instead he would apparate to some of his old haunts and found peace in the empty silence of the land. Alongside the cave, there was the hills at Donegal in Ireland which he enjoyed greatly. Though he had given it a wide berth on account of a recent flux in tourism. There was also some lakes and forests in Wales that he found to his liking. He also enjoyed the Scottish Island of St. Kilda for it's great natural beauty. He had known it was uninhabited. As a child he had seen a Muggle film The Edge of the World about the native residents of the St. Kilda Island's slow evacuation on account of modernization. The other orphans had found the film boring but Tom rather liked it. It was a film where the humans were slowly defeated by the power and might of the land. As a child, he identified with the land and relished its slow release and exile of all the humans it weaned and sheltered for all these years, those humans who had the arrogance to claim it for their home. And eventually it killed and exiled them all. Of course that silly film was made for powerless Muggles. Wizards with power at their tips could command the earth to do it's bidding and Tom could reduce the Island to the ground if he wished but more importantly the land gave him the freedom not to use this power. Like this cave, it existed independently and to Voldemort, its calm indifference was as soothing as any mother's embrace to a child.

Another retreat was the mountains near Hogsmeade, from which he had a great view of Hogwarts. He longed to possess the castle for himself. As a boy, he saw it as his castle and his kingdom, as a man now that he had accumulated great knowledge and power he knew that the one building which defeated him was Hogwarts. Try as he might, he never found any magic in the world that recreated the perfect designs of the moving staircases in the castle or the magic that protected itself from outside penetration. It would take great power to truly storm Hogwarts and claim it. Great power or great cunning, it came to the same thing. As he rested in the cave, with the short waves of water slashing against the rocks, he recalled the day he had visited Dumbledore a few years ago.

It had been two years after Dumbledore had become Headmaster and he had learned from Abraxas Malfoy and Marcus Rosier that Dumbledore was making many staff changes. Jonas Wight, the old Charms professor was replaced by a part-goblin warlock called Filius Flitwick. Minerva McGonagall, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain in his time at Hogwarts was the new Transfiguration Professor. A witch called Sprout took over from Herbert Beery. Of the old teachers, only Slughorn remained, still picking his favourites and indulging in his harmless book keeping. Professor Merrythought had finally retired and he had decided to apply for the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts. Voldemort believed that Dumbledore would take him. He expected the old fool to forget all about him. He had faith too in his abilities as he was no more an Orphan boy who had to hide under the teachers but of course the old man surprised him again. His hair was fully gray by this time but he had become, if possible, more annoying since his days as a teacher. He didn't get the job that he wished for but Tom relished his parting gift to the old fool.

First he had gone to the Forbidden Room on the seventh floor upon his exit from the fool's office. He had walked into the room and retrieved his Diary and his ring which had remained in the very same place he had installed it all those years ago. As if it had been a mere minutes after he kept it there. He then placed Ravenclaw's diadem in the room but he had made sure to put a curse of a special kind on the diadem. He had read of the curse in an obscure Dark Arts text at Lestrange's house for the first time and had discovered of its practical usage from the mind of Ekaterina Zabini. It was an old curse that infected a specific post in society with permanent bad luck. He had chosen the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts as his target. Higher level posts such as the Minister for Magic or Headmaster were of course protected from such curses but the post of a mere teacher of a subject was particularly vulnerable. It had required a talisman and he chose for the task an essentially indestructible Horcrux of his own make. The effects were immediate. The posts of Defence Against the Dark Arts had witnessed continuous turnover for the past few years. Not a single teacher who had accepted the post had lasted longer than a year. This tactical advantage pleased him greatly because it ensured that the students were weak to protect themselves against the very real Dark Arts in his command. It also allowed him the possibility to infiltrate the building with a spy in the future years. Of course at present it was unnecessary.

He removed a clock from within his robes. It was time. He disapparated softly from the cave and re-appeared at once on the terrace of Borgin and Burkes. The sounds and cries that infected the air around him caught him slightly off guard but he recovered at once and surveyed the scene before him avidly. Some of the shops in Diagon Alley were lit on fire. Others were shut up tightly and still others glowed with a pale blue light that suggested magical protection. Above the Alley he saw with satisfaction the Dark Mark, sent up to the sky by a faithful Death Eater. The light from the glowing green skull lit the marauding black figures on the ground ominously. His Death Eaters, robed in black, masked in white were sending curses towards a group of wizards clad in scarlet. They were the Aurors, highly skilled professional Dark Wizard catchers. What his Death Eaters lacked in skill and magical knowledge they made up with cruel and murderous intent. Voldemort watched the exchange lazily looking for familiar figures among the aurors.

That's Edgar Bones, that fool who thought I had poor taste. The Auror Alastor Moody, wonder if he can be persuaded? Caradoc Dearborn, the Arithmancer who works with the Aurors. He identified them carefully, making a note of their faces and their wand movements. The skill from their wands, the verve with which they blocked his Death Eaters deadly spells impressed him. Time to give them a real challenge. He covered his hood over his face carefully so that only the pale white mouth was visible. He then raised his wand and a powerful red ball of fire hurtled towards the scene of the fight.

The Aurors looked at the approaching fireball for the tiny second before apparating away at once. The impact of the red flame created a tiny crater at the centre of the alley that sent many witches and wizards screaming in pain. When the red dust washed away, the black robed figures walked through the mist ominously, dangerously towards the retreating Aurors. In front of them was a tall, black figure, walking forwards unmasked, his wand held forwards.

Devlin Whitehorn, the founder of the Nimbus Broom company was part of the crowd that faced this man and his group. He held his wand in numb fear. He had come to meet his old friend Florean Fortescue for a private dinner only to hear screams and shouts outside the building. To see people being dangled over head as if they were ugly puppets. The most disgusting sight was that of a young girl being dangled above a jeering pack of blackrobesman who kept tossing and twisting her body for their sick fun. He had never seen cruelty of that like in his life.

The man at the head of the black crowd was the only one who showed a part of his face. It was a white mouth with strange fang like teeth. Devlin felt a horrible revulsion worming within him. There was something in his demeanour that did not suggest anything human, that suggested an entity more than a man.

Voldemort wordlessly cast a powerful sonorus charm on himself. It was heard across Diagon Alley, Knockturn Alley, audible to the goblins in the bowels of Gringotts and crystal clear to the denizens of the Leaky Cauldron.

"My fellow witches and wizards. You have all heard of me. You have heard the myths, the lies and the tall tales passed on as fact. Some of you think of me as an old mother's tale passed to children to frighten them to behave well. I am interested in how our children are taught but I have little interest in targeting them or stealing them from their mothers just because they are naughty or rude to strangers," he laughed a ringing cold laugh. "What I desire, what I crave is your trust, your approval for my authority. So that we may build a new world together. Where witches and wizard no longer have to hide behind a hidden wall to carry on their daily lives, where our Ministry need not be buried deep under the ground lit by false windows. We won't have to hide anymore." He paused as he glanced around the alley gauging their reactions. The Aurors looked at him cautiously and calculatingly, waiting for his first move.

"I am Lord Voldemort," he hissed softly but they all heard it and he felt a collective shudder at the sound of his name. "These are my Death Eaters. They are my friends, my followers, my converts. All who join me now, in the years before the fall of the old world, shall be honoured above all others. Ours will be a world for sorcerers, warlocks, witches alike, a world where wizard pride is paramount, a world intolerant of leeches such as Mudbloods and Half-Breeds whom we hypocritically treat as equals only to quell them from rising beyond a certain point. We shall have this no more. We shall tell no more lies about ourselves."

There was a loud silence in the wake of this. Voldemort looked around him, the red mist from his curse still spread around the crowd who were fearful and afraid.

"I see a demonstration is in order," Voldemort's eyes swivelled around the Alley, pausing at Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream parlour. "It's a pity, Florean, I really liked the ice creams." He caught sight of a chestnust haired man who turned towards him in shock. Florean hadn't acquired many grey hairs yet. He flicked his wrist casually. A huge boom rang across the alley. All heads turned towards the left hand side of the narrow road, where a small ice-cream shop suddenly erupted in golden flames. There was a huge scream and a great yelling sound from the crowd who began making a stampede. Many of them began disapparating at once, and several pops filled the alley recalling to Tom, the inside of a pop corn machine.

The Aurors split into groups, one of them charged towards the death eaters exchanging spells and curses with them while the others went towards the wreckage of the former ice-cream parlour moving through the crowd. Some of the crowd who were afraid of splinching rose to the air on brooms. Of course the Death Eaters had prepared for this and they shot curses into the air. One of which connected to a broom and a woman fell of her broom and crashed into the ground with a sickening thud.

Voldemort walked forwards with his wand outstretched and began casually deflecting all curses and charms sent his way by the Aurors. He came within distance of Florean who looked at his burning shop in horror. He turned around, as if he felt his gaze.

"How could you?" he gasped in horror. "There were people inside. Women and children."

Voldemort smiled, "I said I would miss the ice-creams Florean. And of course all the old Peverell stories."

Fortescue flinched in horror as he heard this and then his eyes widened in shock and recognition. "It can't be...it's n-not possible. Tom -"

"Don't finish it," snapped Voldemort. "My name is Lord Voldemort. Never forget that, Florean."

Suddenly, he heard a distant yelling sound and he turned his head in time to find a searing golden light approaching him. Voldemort disapparated just in time to a few spaces to the right side of the alley and turned around to see the impact of the curse. The curse hit a building on the left and there was a great crater in the wall of the building. Voldemort looked at the caster of that spell, the Auror Alastor Moody whose eyes followed him.

Voldemort retaliated with the killing curse which Moody dodged. He then turned around to find Edgar Bones and Dearborn closing him with their wands outstretched and then he saw three other Aurors coming nearer.

The Death Eaters who had been attacking the remaining Aurors as well as the exiting denizens of the Alley turned their heads in the direction of the Aurors approaching him. Voldemort raised his hand however, "I command you Death Eaters to retreat, to disapparate at once. I shall take care of company all by myself."

One by one the black robed Death Eaters disapparated at once. Edgar Bones glared at Voldemort with his intelligent black eyes, "You hope to battle six Aurors all by yourself."

"Six!" retorted Voldemort lazily, "There are only five here." A green jet of light exploded from his wand to an unprepared Auror who immediately crumpled to the ground, dead. The ruthless cold slaughter of their fellow wizard made Bones pale.

"Wait I count four," another Auror was killed in a fast blaze of deadly green. No sooner that he said he felt a hurtling speeding sound and Voldemort turned his head in time to see the blazing blue light move towards his wand, in a flash the light disappeared and turned into a powerful purple colour that hit Caradoc Dearborn on the side of his shoulder. He screamed in pain as he fell to the ground, wandless but quite alive.

"So which of you dares to challenge Lord Voldemort," he hissed coldly. The duel that followed was fast and brutal. The Aurors were fighting to contain the Dark Lord but he met their best and fastest curses with fury and bite. Moody, Bones and Jackson used all their skill and experience to dodge the Dark Lord's curses, his jinxes and above all the inescapable, unblockable killing curse that he wielded so casually.

"You won't escape," yelled Jackson angrily. "The Ministry is sending for more reinforcements."

"The Ministry is far too busy being pre-occupied with the harmless prankmaking of my brother Death Eaters across the country," laughed Voldemort. "You see it puts a heavier price on the statute of secrecy than on the lives of their fellow wizards. You see what I am fighting against. I am against this thinking of our world, which wastes so much of it's time in hiding and lying. You would be better served, Auror, to join my side. I bear no grudges. You are skilled, all three of you, to come this far."

"I'd rather send you to Azkaban as Dementor meat," growled Moody hurtling a jet of fire towards Voldemort. Voldemort deflected the curse and sent it towards the deserted shop of a neighbouring Apothecary.

"You need to be careful, Alastor," said Voldemort softly.

"On a first name basis are we?" barked Moody angrily.

"I am getting bored," sighed Voldemort lazily. All three Aurors were knocked back by a great force. Voldemort walked towards Bones and Moody, who were sprawled beside each other. They made to turn their wands towards him but Voldemort was faster, "Expelliarmus!" Their wands flew away into an arc behind them. Voldemort stood over both wizards who glared at him in hatred.

He pointed his wand towards them and muttered, "Crucio!" Neither wizard could hold back the scream impacted from that cruel curse and Voldemort smiled with satisfaction as they twisted and turned. Suddenly, their screams stopped and Voldemort felt the force of a strong blow hit his body. His eyes shut in pain and he actually stooped his back in reaction to the stunning spell hurtled from Jackson.

"Not so powerful now, are you my Lord," yelled out Jackson, supercilously. "You are under ar-"

He never finished it because in the next second a great green flame hurtled towards him. The impact of the spell destroyed his wand which cracked into a shower of wooden splinters. Jackson screamed as the spell then burnt into the flesh of his hands and then disappeared inside his body. He collapsed to his knees screaming in agony as the green flames burnt his insides, his flesh burning red.

"Stop it," cried out Edgar Bones. "He's only twenty four."

Voldemort waved his wand and the two defeated Aurors were petrified in body and speech, only their eyes remained moving. He walked towards the boy and then hissed softly, "The embalming spell is not meant to kill. The pain you are feeling isn't real pain. But it's effect is enough. It's meant to preserve your organs and your innards properly. Of course they usually use this on dead bodies. The pain generally makes the living insane."

He waved his wand once more and Jackson stopped writhing, he was still alive but his mouth was frothing and drooling. Voldemort hissed softly and a snake coiled out of the end of his wand. He continued hissing as the snake curled around the tortured Auror whose body still twitched horribly.

"The spell is especially useful for making an Inferius," hissed Voldemort lazily. "Only it takes a lot of time to do it on a dead body and doing it when the person is still living saves a lot of time." He hissed again and the snake coiled around the Auror's blank neck, his face blank and numb and with another hiss, there was the sound of a snap. The snake vanished and the Auror dropped to the ground dead. Voldemort then walked to the Auror and began chanting in ringing tones and made many wand movements around the body.

The two petrified Aurors would have yelled in agony if they could. But they remained silent as the corpse raised itself awkwardly from the ground. Magically animated, it walked awkwardly, using its dead limbs and hands like branches of wood rather than human body parts. It was an empty husk and it made heavy footsteps as it walked around the Alley.

Voldemort turned his head sharply and looked around to find a greater number of scarlet robed Aurors coming his way. He watched as some of them seemed to recognize the dead Auror walking towards them, others recognized what it was and screamed in shock at his vile mutilation. Others looked towards the tall black robed figure and muttered hisses of anger and fear. Voldemort merely smiled as he disapparated.

*****

Voldemort leaned back and lifted himself out of the Pensieve. He tapped his wand to the side and cleared the contents of the stone basin. He sighed deeply as he leant back on his chair.

Ever since his resurrection at Little Hangleton, he had been going through special memories of his in a Pensieve he had borrowed from Lucius Malfoy. He was back where he was the first time. He had to rebuild what it had taken him a better part of his life to do. It would not be the same as starting from scratch of course but it was nevertheless close to returning to his beginnings.

The odd thing that occurred to Voldemort as he revisited these memories was that he had an odd sense of nostalgia. An emotion that he never felt before. It was the years when the Death Eaters had not yet become decadent, or compromised. When the Ministry and the population had not taken his threat for granted to the extent that the mere possibility of his return had lulled them into denial rather than hysteria.

Ever since he caught up with the happenings of the world since his return, it had amazed him how in a manner of ten years the wizarding world had returned to the same state of banality as before. It was almost as if the fifteen years of terror and murder had never happened. The same cracks had remained as before, the surface merely re-aligning over it again. Only the world was if possible more banal, more hollow. The Wizarding world he had intended to topple was a resistant old lion refusing to back away from the final vestiges of the power it had commanded. The new world was a pack of hypocrites of the worst order. It seemed almost boring to find a way to crack through it.

The Ceremony with which he perceived his life was interrupted. An interruption that seemed to him absurd and callous. He had been so close that time. He had the Ministry in near-total disarray, the Goblins pleading for neutrality and he even managed to infiltrate Snape into Hogwarts. Snape who informed him of the possibility that there was something he had not counted on. The workings of mysterious Fate. Fate had conspired against him strangely. It had anointed a half-blood boy with a mudblood mother as the sole threat against him. He had been fractured and mutilated out of his body that night. He had felt pain of the likes he had forgotten from the days he had crafted Horcruxes. And yet Fate managed to arrange for the worthless Pettigrew to return to his fold, begging for mercy and following the instructions that returned him to power. Using the boy's blood nullified the power of the mudblood girl's sacrifice. And now he was on equal terms with the boy who lived through his deadliest and most powerful magic.

Now that he had returned, he felt that his power was wasted in toppling the ministry. It was necessary but he longer cared for it as he did then. It was Lucius and Yaxley who were working at that. All that mattered to him were the two things that eluded him. Hogwarts castle and Harry Potter. The Castle filled him with the same yearning as it always did. When he had returned to it, inside Quirrell's body, it was the oddest feeling to reside once again within the castle inside a teacher's mind. He almost felt he was back to the days when he was Tom Riddle. The difference was the boy.


Harry Potter was the last great challenge in his life. The death and destruction of the boy filled his existence with a fire and direction like nothing else. It seemed so odd to see a boy who was orphaned just like him grow up with a different face than the one it had when he had attacked it as a baby. It made him realize how old he was. And yet there was Harry Potter, squatting beneath the same tattered hat that had once touched his own head a long time ago. He remembered that it had taken it's time and then sorted him into Gryffindor, just like the boy's parents. The very sight of him unnerved him. And yet, the boy survived and defied him. He prevented him from grasping the Philosopher's Stone. He survived miraculously that night at the graveyard. And yet for all that, the boy had none of the thirst for knowledge and power that he had as a boy. He had little desire for the depths of magic despite the fact he owed his existence to it. All that concerned him was the safety of his friends and loved ones. The weakness and simplicity of it all offended him greatly. The only purpose any wizard had was to seek power, to wield it over those who took it for granted or for those who chose to avoid it. And yet this boy defied it.

He was nothing exceptional, nothing like Tom Riddle. Nothing like his own father for that matter. James Potter, model student, Head Boy, teacher's favourite who charmed his way into their hearts despite piling on detention over detention and who rather like another Head Boy, conducted secret experiments on the side. Harbouring and accompanying a werewolf in an animagus form which he taught his friends to perform and which ironically, served Lord Voldemort excellently. It protected the wizard who betrayed his former friend so that his true master may return. James Potter was a waste. His charm garnered him the personal loyalty of a werewolf and inspired a pureblood scion to turn renegade only to turn towards the attention of a silly mudblood wench. He disliked waste and stupidity and fools who chose love over power. His son possessed only his father's stupidity and none of his strengths.

And yet Harry Potter's existence challenged the very purpose of his life like none other. He had survived with a decorative scar while he was splintered asunder. And Harry Potter was the only person who destroyed his Horcrux. The diary that Lucius Malfoy had so callously misused in his absence was mere rubbish. It no longer possessed his soul splinter. Potter had entered the Chamber of Secrets and destroyed Salazar Slytherin's own beast. None other did it but he did.

Potter – Half-Blood, Orphan, Parselmouth, who all liked and who had power in his offing.

He felt that the Ceremony had only ending – the death of Harry Potter.

But after that, what else was there? Hogwarts yes. He would be able to furrow through the castle with impunity. Beyond that, what else? He would extend beyond the agreed magical borders. Then? Then…Then…Then…then nothing. No more horizons. Just merely existing and weilding the power for all eternity. That was what he wanted but it was not as enjoyable. He had a taste of it now. He had to show all his old followers, the ones who lapsed back into society that he still wielded the same power of the old days. He had to constantly remind the Death Eaters that he was the most powerful of them all and that he was just as bad as he always was. It pained him to exist like that. A ghost from the past. That was not his life. Not his calling. He yearned for the days of old, when he was still starting, still building his way. It was no fun anymore.

Voldemort sighed and smiled, "It's far too late to change now!"

FIN

AUTHOR'S NOTES

This is my last update and the end of THE CEREMONY. Real Life got in the way as it does and I didn't really have the strength to go on. So I chose to end it. If only for the few readers who wanted updates and fo myself to complete the story. This isn't an incomplete story. It is a story with an ending, this one.

For me and many others, Tom Riddle is more interesting to write about and read about than Lord Voldemort. So once I told the story of Tom's days at Hogwarts, the story lost interest for me. I didn't care for it anymore there was nothing else I could write. This chapter went throught major rewrites before I finished it. I found time and decided to give it an ending and even found a way to present it. The entir series is Voldemort privately looking into a Pensieve of the days he moved upwards and how looking at it, he realizes that he has grown old. Which must be an odd feeling for a would-be immortal. Not that I think Voldemort is capable of and deserving of such reflection and understanding but that was the only way for me to end the story. It also helps to explain the peculiar nature of Harry Potter which is about a conflict between adults at various stages in their lives and children. You have Dumbledore who is a stately centurion, Snape who is nearing middle aged and already a wasted man, Voldemort who hates death and is rivals with a boy who he watches growing up before him. And then Harry himself grows up before his time and by the time we come to the epilogue, we see that the life he has is peaceful and restful which is what he wants but not necessarily bearing a calling of greatness.

This was also the only way to really show Voldemort in my opinion without distorting his character as a cold-blooded murderer and a psychopath. He is remorseless and a monster and he is like that but those aspects don't prevent us from finding a level of humanity within him that was interesting for me to explore.

The story that I would like to do now would be a Dumbledore story. For me, far and away the most interesting character in the series.

The chapter title comes from a song by the KINKS called Powerman from their album LOLA VS. POWERMAN AND THE MONEYGOROUND, PART ONE(there is no Part Two).