Chapter 7
Episode - Broken
Mary Margaret's apartment
Harry, Ron, Hermione and Henry were sitting together. Ron had eaten all of Mary Margaret's Kraft Dinner as he couldn't seem to get enough. Harry was staring into space thinking about everything that had been going on. Hermione was reading Henry's story book, while Henry was reading the novel that had been given to them by Rumpelstiltskin, 'Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone'.
"This macaroni and cheese is almost as good as my mom's cooking." said Ron hungrily.
"If you eat much more Ron you are going to get a stomach ache." said Hermione with irritation towards her fiance as she turned to the next page that she had been reading.
She was about a quarter of the way through the book, fascinated by the Fairy Tail history of this alternate reality where all of these storybook characters were real.
The particular story in question that she was reading in that part of the book at that moment was on a story featuring a young Cora, the mother of The Evil Queen, who had recently become a mother herself by her husband Prince Henry, and was learning magic at the hand of Rumpelstiltskin.
She had gotten to the last word at the bottom of the page and then turned the page.
When she then noticed the picture on the page that she just turned to. The picture appeared to be depicting an illustration of Rumpelstiltskin having a conversation with a young man wearing black robes.
After examining the picture for a few moments she noticed something. The attention to detail that only Hermione Granger had. She noticed the tiny symbol drawn on the front of the robes. A tiny silver snake on a green canvas Shield with a silver frame. The word Slytherin barely discernible by the angle that it was facing the fourth wall.
The text on the page went on to read, 'And Cora's magic session was interrupted by The Uninvited arrival of a young wizard by the name of Tom Riddle who had transcended from another Realm. Rumpelstiltskin then inquired of the young wizard why he had come there and the young wizard claimed that he was looking for the key to immortality, where then the Dark One offered the young wizard a deal, and the young wizard accepted.
'After the departure of the young wizard Rumpelstiltskin continued to assist the young princess Cora in the practicing of her telekinesis.'
Hermione was curious to what that meant. These were fairy tales, but yet they were supposed to be true. And even if they were fiction how would the author have known about Tom Riddle?
"Henry?" asked Hermione.
"Yes?" replied Henry.
"Have you read this part of the book?" asked Hermione as she then showed him the page.
"I've read the whole book." answered Henry.
"You've been able to identify most of the characters in this book, correct?"
"Most of them, yes." said Henry.
"Do you know who this person is?"
And she pointed to Tom Riddle on the page.
"The young wizard from another realm, Tom Riddle." said Henry. "But I've never seen him in Storybrooke. I assumed he was an insignificant character that escaped the curse."
"Henry," said Hermione as she pointed to the young Tom Riddle in the story book, "Tom Riddle is Lord Voldemort."
"Wait," said Henry with confusion, "how can that be? Traveling to other Realms is supposed to be extremely difficult."
"Is he anywhere else in the book?" asked Harry as he and Ron stood over them, apparently listening to the context of the conversation.
"No, that is the only part of the book that he's in."
"So what kind of a deal did Voldemort make with Rumpelstiltskin?" asked Ron.
"I think we need to find out." said Harry.
The four of them left the apartment together. They were heading towards Mr. Gold's pawn shop when Ron was then distracted. They came by an ice cream shop called, 'Any Given Sundae'.
"Ice cream." said Ron. "I need some of that."
"After you just pigged out on macaroni and cheese?" said Hermione.
They entered the ice cream shop with a bell ringing at the door.
A middle-aged blonde woman in casual clothes and an apron was behind the counter.
"Hey Sara." said Henry. "How are you doing with the breaking of the curse?"
"Hey Henry. It's nice to have my memories back." said Sara Fisher, the owner of the establishment.
"So what storybook character are you?" asked Ron out of curiosity.
"Ingrid, of the kingdom of Arendelle. My kingdom was unaffected by the curse, but I was unlucky enough to be visiting the Enchanted Forest when the curse was enacted. But enough of that. What can I get for you?"
"Chocolate will suffice." said Ron.
She served him a generous portion in a white paper cup and gave him a plastic spoon. Ron then handed over some money.
"Thank you."
Ron finished his ice cream in a short time and complained about brain freeze. With no public wastebasket in sight he cast a Vanishing charm on his paper cup and plastic spoon.
"You know," said Ron, "I've always wondered, where do vanished objects go? How do they just wink out of existence?"
"That was a question that was asked at the entrance to Ravenclaw Tower," said Harry, "you can't enter the tower unless you answer a question accurately. Amicus Carrow tried to enter the tower and that very question was asked, it wasn't until Professor McGonagall showed up and said that vanished objects go into 'non-being', meaning everything."
"Well," said Henry, "scientifically speaking, by the physical law of conservation, no matter or energy in the universe can be either created or destroyed."
The words coming out of Henry's mouth spoke from a boy who was very smart and intelligent.
"So therefore when you cast your Vanishing spell on an inanimate object you can't just wink it out of existence, technically it's raw materials would have to go somewhere, meaning that those raw materials would need to be dispersed throughout the Universe."
"You're very clever Henry." said Hermione complimentingly with a smile.
—-
The Enchanted Forest many years ago
Teenage Voldemort had entered Rumpelstiltskin's home for the second time. He was walking down the hallway when suddenly he came face to face with the young female magic student holding a baby.
"And you must be…Cora is it?" said Lord Voldemort.
"That is your Royal Highness, Princess Cora." she politely corrected though there was an invisible subtle reprimand in her voice.
"My apologies." said Voldemort with a bland protocol respect, where he then with a wave of his wand conjured a rose out of thin air and offered it to her. "Your highness."
He then looked at the baby. The baby was adorable as any baby would be, though Voldemort himself had little interest in the Aesthetics of the young.
"And this must be Regina?"
"Her royal highness, Princess Regina, for one day she will be Queen."
Voldemort was fascinated but not enough to ask for further details, he was here for his prize, what Rumpelstiltskin had promised him.
"Tom Riddle, right?" asked Cora.
"Yes. I am here to see your teacher."
"You may go to see him. Though you might have to wait, he's seeing some other people that wish to make a deal with him."
He continued to walk towards the doors that were Rumpelstiltskin's chambers. He entered. There were three women talking to him. Two blondes and a redhead.
"So let me get this straight." said Rumpelstiltskin to the women, after he had signaled Voldemort with a raised finger to hang on a minute. "You want me to suppress your sister's Ice Powers?"
"Yes." said one of the women.
"Very well, dearie."
He then produced an urn and a pair of blue gloves.
"Wear these gloves and everyone around you will be safe from your Magic, dearie. But as a precaution this urn will also trap and conceal any magical being. Hopefully you won't have to use it."
One of the women reached for the gloves in the urn but then Rumpelstiltskin withheld them.
"Don't forget dearies, all magic comes with a price."
"What do you want in return?" asked one of the women.
"In exchange for the gloves and the urn, I will take…" he paused in order to determine exactly what he wanted, "those lovely ribbons."
He had gestured to the pretty yellow adornments wrapped around one wrist of each of the women.
"What do you want our ribbons for?" asked one of the women.
"I am a collector of magical objects dearie, and with the bond of love that the three of you have together, ordinary objects that symbolize something can have great Magic."
They paused apparently hesitant to give up the yellow ribbons. But yet they seemed to need these magical objects that the dark one was offering.
"So, dearie. Your Royal Highness princesses Ingrid, Helga, and Gerta of the kingdom of Arendelle…do we have a deal?"
In the end, the three women decided to part with them though the worthless strips of fabric seem to hold extreme sentimental value to the three women. Voldemort wondered who in the world would want to give up their magic. Didn't make sense to him. If anything he wanted more magic.
The three women took their merchandise and then walked past Voldemort as they took their leave.
"You have returned?" said Rumpelstiltskin.
"I set up a magical Laboratory at Hogwarts within 'The Room of Requirement'." said Voldemort explaining. "I experimented with getting the spell I used to come here to work in reverse. Didn't work.
"I tried again with different variation methods. Nothing.
"So I tried looking for other methods. For months I went over hundreds of magical formulas to try and find a way to transport someone from this world to my realm's muggle world. Hundreds of formulas which all failed.
"Wanting your instructions on how to split my soul in half, I remained confident with fresh perspective after every failure. It was frustrating. But I never stop trying. It was painstaking. Extremely difficult!
"When all standard simple methods failed I looked into more complicated and unorthodox methods. I delved into dark magic from forbidden books in the restricted section of the library. In the past few months I have delved deeper into magic than anyone ever has! Nothing."
He said the last word with a tone of disappointed finality and then paused to clear his thoughts.
"But then I lucked out. I finally came up with this."
He then held up a small scroll with rune-like writings on it.
"What is it? A spell?" asked Rumpelstiltskin.
"Yes, but not just a spell; a Curse!" said Voldemort with a serious face and a serious voice. "But not just any curse. This is quite possibly the most powerful, dark, and evil curse in the history of magic; a curse to end all curses! If you can enact it then it will transport you from this world to mine. Unfortunately transporting yourself from this world to mine with the curse is not technically what the curse is supposed to do, no, the transportation from Realms is just an insignificant side-effect of enacting the curse. But, it is the only thing I was able to come up with. Once I came up with the curse I tried to fine-tune it, I tried to isolate the 'Transcendence of realms' effect, and screen out the rest of the spell, but I couldn't. The Transcendence of Realms does not work without the rest of the curse."
"But it does work?" asked Rumpelstiltskin with Hope on his face.
"Oh, it'll work." Voldemort clarified with reassurance. "If…you can actually enact it."
"What do you mean, if?" he said with curiosity and concern.
"It's like you said to me, all magic comes with a price. And the price for enacting this curse is pretty darn steep. It will require…love…as a power source."
"What will it take?" asked Rumpelstiltskin.
Voldemort handed the mini scroll over to Rumpelstiltskin.
"A potion in a large cauldron. Filled with many very rare and difficult to obtain ingredients, but I'm sure it's nothing you can't handle, the primary problem is the final ingredient. A human sacrifice. But not just any human sacrifice; the person who enacts the curse must sacrifice 'the heart' of the one that they love the most. But, 'the one that you love the most', that is a little generalized. For example if I wanted to enact the curse, because I love no one, I could technically enact the curse with the heart of my closest acquaintance that I dislike the least. No, that would not work. The person who enacts the curse, love they feel for that person, they must love them a lot."
That's when Voldemort gave a diabolical smile. "Which ultimately makes the curse impossible to enact. The person who enacts the curse must love someone enough to be able to 'afford' to pay the cost, while simultaneously being evil and selfish enough to be 'willing' to pay the cost."
Rumpelstiltskin unrolled the scroll. His face turned to a look of absolute disgust.
"Oh my God! This curse is horrendous!" said Rumpelstiltskin with horror in his voice. "It would take the foulest, darkest and most evil person in all the realms to create a spell like this!"
"I'm flattered." said Voldemort with a smile. "But let's just say I was motivated."
Voldemort then held up the scroll that contained the deal that he and Rumpelstiltskin had signed and agreed to.
"I have delivered a means to transport one's self from this realm to mine, now, I believe I shall receive my payment."
To Rumpelstiltskin, this curse was worthless. Not to mention he was conflicted about giving such an evil psychopath a means to immortality that will ultimately make him worse. But yet by the terms of the deal, and Rumpelstiltskin's own principle on upholding his end, he reluctantly handed over the step-by-step instructions on how to make a horcrux.
"Pleasure doing business with you." said Voldemort with a smile.
Voldemort started to walk away when he paused and then turned back to Rumpelstiltskin.
"I do have one question. Would it be possible for me to create more than one horcrux?"
Rumpelstiltskin then had his smile back and then his maniacal giggle.
"You never give up, do you dearie? Of course it is possible. Yes. But like I've already said, all magic comes with a price. Splitting your soul in half is one thing. But to split it into thirds or quarters…or more? Though having a horcrux will keep you from dying, yes, with every additional horcrux that you make, the price is that it will render the remaining portion of your soul within your body extremely unstable, meaning that even though you won't die, the price for this particular Magic, cheating death, is that you might leave yourself open to a fate worse than death."
"What fate could be worse than death?" asked Voldemort.
Rumpelstiltskin paused to collect his thoughts and then pace through him back and forth for about a minute.
"There's a difference between being 'not dead' and 'living', by any meaningful meaning and definition of the word. If your soul is too diminished and diluted then it may not be able to hold a body. Though you won't be dead you will be a bodiless insubstantial entity. A fate worse than death being that you won't be able to interact with the physical world, you won't be able to interact with people, you won't be able to eat, or sleep, or rest, or feel. You will be, alive, but your existence won't be living. You will just be meaninglessly existing without being able to eat, sleep, rest, or feel."
"Then I will just have to find a way around that." said Voldemort with confidence.
And Voldemort walked away.
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