Chapter One

Out of the Void

The void between was empty and without space. He had been constricted in that nothingness for immeasurable time: Days or years, he did not know. A chunk of imagined flesh without space to exist in. His only wish had been that he could have slept. But he was trapped in wretched alertness, straining to breathe with his collapsed lungs. Breath that he knew he didn't need. Back then, his punishment was to drown eternally, as if trapped in Apparition and unable to reach his destination. He knew why he couldn't complete the transition. He had given up too much of himself. Split his soul into too many pieces. And so he remained in an illusion of bodily existence in a placeless place. He hated to admit to himself that he sometimes wished he could go back to that first hell.

This new one was altogether worse, as his captors had intended.

It had begun slowly. Whispers on the edge of his consciousness intruded on his boredom.

Voldemort… Voldemort… where are you… where are you hiding…

The whispers had come only fleetingly at first, but over time they became a buzz that did not cease. Voices searching for him. Briefly he had begun to hope that the voices were his followers, searching for him. But as their cries came into focus, he began to feel fear. Whispers were becoming shouts, screams; a cacophony of condemnation.

We will find you, Voldemort! We will make you suffer endlessly!

And then his solitude ended. He was squeezed the rest of the way across the imperceptible gap between two realities and exploded into a new place, familiar and yet utterly different in substance. He had a brief impression of an endless, formless whiteness that quickly vanished behind a sea of faces. Faces displaying anger, hatred and contempt.

The days — weeks? years? — that followed were the worst of his entire existence. He was subjected to abject horror and agony as hordes of his victims flocked into this little universe to torment him. Some merely wanted to vent their anger and frustration at him, hurling insults. Others went further, inflicting injuries that felt real enough. They were able to alter his reality at will, transforming the space around him into a tiny stone dungeon replete with tools to torment him. His body was not of their choosing. . . . nor his. He had the form of a stunted, slimy and flayed child. Blood oozed from sores and cuts that would not heal.

After every session with a vengeful victim, he would return to normal health — normal, of course, meaning covered in pus and boils, his imagined lungs forcing him to breathe.

They would leave him in various positions. Sometimes he hung by chains from the ceiling or wall. Sometimes he was left strapped to a table. Sometimes he was casually discarded in a puddle on the floor. Each visitor left their own mark on his prison, enhancing the gloom in whatever way they saw fit. For some time there had been a crack in the ceiling that endlessly dripped water, denying him even the comfort of silence when he was alone. Sometimes he was intentionally left beneath it to suffer as the water pelted his face. Unnecessary implements hung from the ceiling and walls: manacles, chains and ropes. One visitor, a victim who apparently knew him well, added a decaying corpse to keep him company — the wilting visage of Bellatrix hung by the arms from the wall, her legs crumpled against the floor, her eyeless face glaring at him. Numerous visitors had come and gone since then, with longer and longer periods of time in between, and each time the corpse was left staring at him. Were they moving it, or had its creator ensured that its empty gaze would always follow him?

Suddenly footsteps broke the relative silence, a sound he had not heard for. . . . well, he wasn't sure. It had been weeks, possibly months since his last visitor. He'd been alone for so very long, left lying in a puddle at the center of the room, tucked away under the torture table.

The footsteps stopped behind him. He tightened further into his fetal curl, his mangled hands balling into weak fists.

"Go away," he said, his voice soft and raspy. "I am still weary of your petty recriminations. Begone and leave me to suffer in peace."

"Oh I don't think I'll be going away any time soon, Tom," came an unpleasantly familiar voice. "We have things to discuss."

He hissed in response.

"I've wondered from time to time whether you'd ever come to visit me, Dumbledore. I confess I began to hope you never would. I am not interested in your drivel any more than the others'. I suffer, and will suffer forever. Let that be enough for you."

"Does it have to be forever, Tom?" the man replied. Indignation bristled in his mind. So, instead of tormenting him with recriminations, he wanted to dangle false hopes before his eyes?

"Begone, Dumbledore!" he hissed at his loudest, which was not much. He was so very weak. . . . "I am not interested in false hopes! Take your taunts elsewhere!"

"I read the book, you know." Dumbledore's conversational tone was infuriating. "Secrets of the Darkest Art, it was called. Do you recall it?"

The wretched fragment that had been Voldemort remained silent, apart from his labored breathing.

"You were always thorough, Tom," the hateful man pressed. "You read the footnote, I am sure. The split soul can be restored."

He would remain silent. And the man would lose hope and go.

"All it takes is remorse for your actions, Tom."

The word stirred his thoughts toward anger. It was the word that the boy had taunted him with in his final living moments. His wrath overcame him.

"Yes, yes, Dumbledore, but I must truly regret my actions, which I do not. I only regret the mistakes that led to my fall. That I was not more decisive in dealing with you and that boy sooner. Besides, even if I felt remorse —" He spat the word. "— it would be useless without the rest of me to restore. Those fragments are lost, destroyed."

"Are they?" he asked. "How do you know? Souls cannot be destroyed, they come here. How can you be sure that the rest of you is not here, in this place, waiting to be found?"

"Begone, I say! Do not taunt me further!"

"Think on it, Tom," the man said. "Ask yourself where those fragments might be found if they still exist, look deep within and ask yourself, are you not the slightest bit sorry for what you've done, and for the lives you've destroyed?"

Finally, his patience spent, he screamed it. "LEAVE, CURSE YOU!"

The exclamation sent him into a fit of coughs and gags. It seemed like hours of pain and agony as he attempted to recover his breath. Why should he have to breathe here, in this accursed place? Breath was for the living.

"I said to begone, Dumbledore, and I meant it. Leave me in peace!"

His demand was met by silence, even the dripping water had ceased. Struggling, he turned over. Every movement was an effort. Gazing at the space that had been behind him, he found it empty. Nothing was visible but a faintly lit, grimy stone stairway leading up and out of his dungeon. His hell. Self-inflicted, he knew, but that did not change a thing.

He was alone. He had been alone in life, and he would be alone in death.

Forever.