Chapter 24
Episode - In The Name Of The Brother
Regina was in her dining room. She had cooked herself some food. Henry was still staying at Mary Margaret's place. She was feeling a little lonely. She had no lover. She had no family. And her son wanted to stay with his biological mother.
She had proposed to Emma that Henry could occasionally sleep in his old bedroom, but Emma apparently was not comfortable with that. As though she knew better. She has been a parent for all of 5 minutes. She, Regina had been caring for Henry since a month after he was born. She had changed every diaper. Soothed every nightmare. Bought him all the clothes on his back. Gave him three meals a day. Granted she had lied to him for his entire life. And then when he obtained his storybook and believed it, which was true, she tried to make him out to be crazy. Granted she was in a different state of mind then. She wanted Henry to herself. Henry made her happy.
But it wasn't until she thought about her own mother Cora that she realized that what she really wanted was for Henry to be happy. So she made the selfless choice and sent him off to live with David. She had a chance to stop the portal from opening so that she would be the only person in Henry's life other than David. But she made the selfless choice and allowed Mary Margaret and Emma to return. And what was her reward? An empty house. And an adopted son that still wanted to live with his biological family.
"Are you sure you want to do this, Your Majesty?" asked Lord Voldemort as he and Cora stood outside of the mayor's house.
"I've waited long enough." said Cora, not with impatience, but just with a tone of finality. "It is time. I have crossed realms to be reunited with her."
"Why is this so important to you, Your Majesty?" asked Voldemort with skepticism. "Why do you seek your daughter's approval so much?"
She looked Voldemort in the face with a serious expression.
"Because I love her." said Cora with feeling. "Something that you would not understand."
Voldemort did not reply. But he was thinking of how wrong Cora was. For there was once a time when even with Voldemort being the person that he is, there was one person that he had a glimmer of Light Within his heart amongst an ocean of Darkness.
The Enchanted Forest, a year before the dark curse
Voldemort had transported himself to the Enchanted Forest again. He was following the advice that Rumpelstiltskin had given him, to remove his heart. The thing is, he wasn't entirely sure how to do it. He had heard that in the Enchanted Forest those who practice the dark arts can rip one's heart out of one's chest without killing them, except it's not a normal heart, it is just a person's figurative heart in physical form, and it becomes Enchanted. He had witnessed it done once before when he was 16 years old when Rumpelstiltskin ripped his heart out.
So all he needed to do now was find someone who could teach him this particular dark magic. So that he could rip his own heart out without killing himself. That would suppress his emotions and conscience so that the portions of a soul that he had removed from himself don't try and reassemble themselves back together.
He started to walk. He admired the mountains and the forest. The beauty of nature.
It was then that he saw a man wearing a red shirt, black pants, a red cape, and he was riding on a white horse. He was going down a path within the forest and Voldemort for the life of himself became curious. He followed the man for a short distance until he dismounted from his horse. He'd come across what appeared to be seven short men wearing odd clothing. Dwarves. The Seven Dwarves were standing around a glass coffin. Inside was a woman apparently dead. Voldemort was smart enough to put two and two together and figure out who these storybook characters were, Snow White and Prince Charming.
"You're too late." said one of the dwarves with a red hat, white beard and glasses.
"No!" said the man in despair.
He went right up to the coffin and looked through the glass. A tear fell from his eye at the thought that all was lost.
"At least let me say goodbye." he said in a tone of finality.
The dwarves lifted the lid from the coffin. Voldemort watched as Prince Charming bent forward and touched his lips to the lips of the Snow White. And Voldemort was awed by the most extraordinary display of Supernatural power that he had ever seen. For the moment that the skin of his lips came in contact with the skin of her lips a semi-transparent rainbow colored pulse wave rippled out in all directions disturbing anything he came in contact with like a blast of wind. The woman then opened her eyes and gasped a breath of air.
"You Found Me!" said Snow White as she looked at the man.
"Did you ever doubt me?" asked Prince Charming with relief.
"To be honest, the glass coffin gave me pause."
Voldemort listened to their conversation from a distance as they stretched their legs and walked to the water's edge, of the lake. The beach was made of pebbles. Prince Charming got down on one knee and presented her with a ring.
"Snow White, will you marry me?" asked Prince Charming.
She then took the ring and put it on her own finger and spread her fingers wide and smiled at him.
"What do you think?" said Snow White.
Voldemort was curious about this. If these fairy tales existed in his world, and the story is playing out like this now, why would there already be a fairy tale record of it in his world? Do these stories happen all the time and the tales of them cross over to be written by different people like Walt Disney creating the cartoon movies? Ultimately he did not have the answer.
They kissed, but then Snow White drew back and she had this hesitation on her face.
"What's wrong?"
"There's just the matter of your father and my stepmother."
"So what do you want to do?"
"I've got an idea. Let's Take Back The Kingdom."
"And how shall we do that?"
"The same way we do everything. Together."
Voldemort's spell that allows him to exist in that world temporarily, had expired and he was then transported back.
Voldemort repeated the spell several times as his Transportation spell was only temporary. But he was again back in the Enchanted Forest. The Civil War between the Charmings and their Royal parents was going well for the Charmings. They had been rallying resistances and the Evil Queen and King George seemed to be retreating on all fronts. King George and the evil queen had an army of Black Knights which were conscripted employees. While Snow White and Prince Charming had the support of the dwarves, the fairies, and a lot of disgruntled malcontent peasants and villagers. Not only did Snow White and Prince Charming have greater numbers, but the Royal subjects of the Kingdom wanted Snow White on the throne more than they wanted King George or Regina, and King George's Army and Regina's Black Knights didn't seem to really have their hearts in the cause against the rebels.
Voldemort had searched here and there for people of magical Talent to teach him this technique of ripping out hearts. He went from town to town and person to person, anyone who would be skilled in the magical Arts. He was disappointed. Then a short distance away perched on a tree branch was the caw of a crow, and then the bird flew away.
He continued to walk for a few minutes where then he heard from overhead the wing beats of giant wings. He looked up and he was in awe as he saw a giant fire breathing dragon. It was covered in scales, had Claws and fangs and horns. It landed on the ground right in front of him. He raised his wand.
But then with a giant whirl of purple smoke that the dragon then became engulfed in, the dragon began to shrink all the way down to the size of a person and when the smoke cleared what was in its place was a woman. On top of her head she wore a headpiece of dragon horns, in her right hand using as a walking stick was a staff with a dragon image on the end of it, and on her body was a Sinister looking black dress of red and black gemstones and a necklace around her neck.
"And you must be the famous Lord Voldemort." said the woman.
"Who's asking?" said Voldemort.
"I am Maleficent." she declared. "Dragon, sorceress, Mistress of evil. And allow me to introduce to you my two comrades."
Then out from around the corner came two more women. One woman was skinny, had pale skin and hair half of which was black and half of which was white, and she wore thick Furs of Dalmatian skin. The Other Woman was black with a green dress and a large headdress in her hair, and from underneath her skirt came too long octopus tentacles.
"Cruella Deville, and Ursula, goddess of the sea." Maleficent finished.
"And so what do I owe the pleasure?" asked Voldemort.
"A little bird told us that you seek the ability to rip out hearts, darling." said Cruella Deville in a strong British accent.
"We want to teach you this ability." said Ursula.
"And why would you want to help me?" asked Voldemort.
"Because we believe that a war is coming between good and evil. And we thought that we would Garner a few favors, and collect a few allies." said Maleficent.
"So," said Lord Voldemort, "you do this favor for me now and you will come to collect from me later?"
"Essentially." said Maleficent. "So, do we have a deal?"
Voldemort stepped forward and scrutinized Maleficent's face a little more closely. He didn't know what it was, but he felt an odd sort of rush. An unusual high. Maleficent was beautiful by normal standards, probably not supermodel beautiful, but there was definitely an odd sort of attraction that he was feeling to her. Not physical or emotional, no, but just an unusual…'need' for her.
"Deal." said Voldemort.
"Well then let us get started straight away, darling." said Cruella.
The three witches then led the dark wizard down a path.
"Tell me Dark Lord, have you ever burned a village to the ground before?" Maleficent said with a smile as though it was a recreational Pastime that she enjoyed.
"Yes I have." said Voldemort with pride.
"We're going to need a few people to kill." said Maleficent.
They traveled to a small village with a population of 95. Maleficent held out her staff and the glass sphere on the end released a Shockwave of purple light that passed throughout the entire town and everyone dropped to the ground.
"Sleeping spell." said Maleficent. "My specialty."
"I am curious." said Voldemort with interest as he continued to look at the woman that gave off the odd Allure to him. "How in the world were you able to transform yourself into a fire-breathing dragon?"
"Practice." was Maleficent's answer. "I didn't learn how to do it overnight. It took me years to perfect the technique. But once I was able to do it, I had a weapon that no one else had. It's virtually impossible to tame a dragon to do your bidding, so I did the next best thing. I became the Dragon."
"I have many talented sorcerers and sorceresses doing my bidding, and I look down on each and every one of them because of how incompetent they all are." said Voldemort. "But you Maleficent, I have to say I am impressed. But not just mildly impressed. I am significantly impressed."
Maleficent gave a pleasant smile as though she was appreciative of the praise.
One of Ursula's tentacles then stretched out and grabbed hold of one of the villagers' necks. Then she held the person in front of voldemort.
"Now, I assume you've seen the technique done before?" said Maleficent.
"Once before." said Voldemort. "Rumpelstiltskin did it to me."
Maleficent put on a serious frown.
"Be wary of Rumpelstiltskin." said Maleficent. "He's treacherous."
"I tolerate Rumpelstiltskin with good grace." said Voldemort.
"Well, allow me to demonstrate." said Maleficent with the urging to get started.
She then thrust her hand forward and her hand magically passed right through the villager's clothes, skin, and bone. She then pulled the heart out and there was no damage to the chest or the clothing. The heart glowed red. She then crushed the heart in her hands and it turned to dust.
Ursula tossed the person's body aside and then grabbed another person.
"Your turn." said Ursula.
Voldemort tried it several times. But his hand kept making solid impact with the person's chest.
"This is not working." said Voldemort and frustration after the 20th failed attempt.
"My apologies." said Maleficent as she rubbed his back and tried to soothe him.
Voldemort felt comforted by this gesture.
"I don't think I taught you properly. Relax, and take a deep breath."
Voldemort complied. He relaxed. It took a breath in. Then you took a breath out.
"Now," said Maleficent, "turn on your dark magic."
With conscious focus of will he activated his magic, though not to do anything in particular, just turned it on within him.
"Now, you need to feel the emotion." said Maleficent. "This isn't about how powerful you are with your magic in general, no, this is about the darkness within you. And I bet you got a lot."
"They don't call me the Dark Lord for nothing." said Lord Voldemort.
"You need to feel the emotion." said Maleficent. "From what I understand, magic Works differently in your world. Magic is an intellectual discipline. Here however magic is emotion. You need to think of something that makes you angry."
"I'm sure there's a few." said Voldemort as he tried to think.
"How about this," said Maleficent, "let me use my dark memory as an example and then you find something.
"It was about 60 years ago. I was just a little girl. I was about 12 years old. I didn't have much. But I had a talent for magic that others didn't. People called me a witch. In a derogatory way, as though there was something wrong with it. It hurt, but I wanted to nurture my gift of magic, so I did. I went to the fairies, and I asked them if they could teach me to be a fairy. They told me that not just anyone can become a fairy, the Blue Fairy encouraged me to nurture my magical gifts but that they could not train me to be one of them.
"Then one day I met the heir to the throne of the western Kingdom, Prince Stefan. He saw me trying to use magic, and he said he was impressed. He told me that I was beautiful. He told all the bullies to leave me alone. He spent time with me. Give me time and attention. He would hold my hand and stroke my face. And for the first time I didn't feel alone. And then one day he leaned forward and he touched his lips to mine, and he called it 'true loves kiss'. And I had fallen in love with him. He was my other half. My soulmate. And he made me happy.
But it was all for nothing. It was all a lie. It was when he and I were about 20 years old that I had expected him to propose marriage to me, for he came of age where he was to choose a bride to be his Queen. And that's when he and all of his friends threw mud at me and pushed me to the ground and then laughed at me. They told me that it was all a joke. That he had never cared about me. And that he was laughing at me behind my back that I would actually believe that he would ever like a witch like me."
Voldemort listened intently at the Despicable Act of Dishonor that this false friend had betrayed her with.
It had been years of practice of magic but I had finally learned to do it. My false true love's childish prank finally turned me into the Dragon. In a fit of childish tantrum I burned a lush Forest to the ground. My dragon breath burned so hot nothing could ever grow on that plot of land again all that was left was a single tree with a flame that would never extinguish."
Maleficent's eyes were closed in concentration as she continued to remember the experience.
"I got my revenge. Or at least I thought I had. Prince Stefan took for a wife a lowly miserable peasant girl, by the name of Briar Rose. The people called her in legend, Sleeping Beauty. I waited until the right moment. I was going to make King Stefan suffer the pain that he had inflicted on me.
"So I went to my cauldron in my newly built Forbidden Fortress. And I delved deep into dark magic. And that was when I created 'The Sleeping Curse'. It puts a person's physical body into a state of suspended animation which causes the mind to travel to the netherworld unable to go on to the better place with no trials to face to move on. And they suffer for all of eternity.
Stefan and Briar Rose had given birth to a baby girl that they had named Aurora. I showed up at their christening. Anyone who is anyone was there. And I gave them an ultimatum. An ultimatum to take away their happiness. I waved my staff over the baby, and I enacted a spell that would manipulate faint and Destiny to work a certain way. I cursed the baby that on her 16th birthday she would prick her finger on the spindle of a spinning wheel and she would fall into a death like sleep, never to be awakened, ever. However, I gave them the choice that if they asked it of me I could transfer the curse to Queen Briar Rose. Queen Briar Rose volunteered. So I transferred the curse to her, and in an instant a Spinning Wheel magically materialized out of thin air and an invisible force pulled her hand towards it and she touched her finger to the tip."
Voldemort was still listening intently, genuinely interested in what this woman had to say. And for the life of him, he Lord Voldemort, sympathized with her. He felt sorry for her that this had happened to her. That this King Stephen was the one in the wrong, and it was Despicable that he had hurt her this way.
"Believing that I had gotten my revenge, I teleported away." Maleficent continued. "However I found out later on that I had not gotten my revenge. I learned that it wasn't 5 minutes after I had left, five meager minutes, that I realized the flaw in my curse. I designed the Sleeping Curse to be Unbreakable. But I had underestimated that it could be broken by true love. 5 minutes after I had left, King Stephen gave his sleeping wife Briar Rose a kiss on the lips. And she woke up. My sleeping curse was useless. I went into a state of depression because I couldn't get my revenge, or my happy ending."
And that was when Maleficent demonstrated the heart ripping Technique One More Time.
"Now, Lord Voldemort, what is your angry memory?"
Voldemort had many enemies. But simply having an enemy doesn't provoke anger. Even his servants' failures is less anger and more just disappointment in his expectations. But there was one memory that makes his blood boil.
"I was 6 years old." said Voldemort. "I was living in the orphanage that I grew up in. I was sitting alone and minding my own business, when all the sudden Harvey Lesterson would pick on me. He was a bully. Coward. He was twice my age, twice my size, and he thought he made himself strong by picking on those smaller than himself. He taunted me. Made fun of me. Called me insults. He would push me to the floor, get on top of me and start hitting me. And I wanted him to suffer! I wanted him to feel the hurt and humiliation!"
Voldemort spoke with an angry voice.
"And then somehow, I got my revenge. I was standing across the room looking at him. Fuming with anger. I wanted to kill him. And then an invisible force caused his head to turn sideways and a loud crack in his neck. I was astonished that it had happened. Was like magic. Which I later found out that I had done it. The paramedics were astonished. There were several eyewitnesses that wondered how in the world it could have happened.
"But every time I think of how he would bully me both psychologically and physically, I just fume with anger at the memory!"
Voldemort's eyes were closed in concentration of conjuring up the memory.
"Voldemort?" said Maleficent trying to get his attention.
He opened his eyes and looked at her.
"Look." she pointed.
And when Voldemort looked forward he noticed that his arm was outstretched and his hand was inside the villager's chest. His hand had magically passed right through the villager's clothing, skin, and bone. He felt his fingers wrap around the heart. He could feel it's warmth. He could feel it beating. And he pulled and his fingers gripping the heart and the heart magically passed right through the bone, skin, and clothing and he held it in his hand. The heart glowed red. He couldn't see any black in it, but the blackness in the heart might have been subtle. The red pulsed, getting slightly brighter every couple seconds and slightly darker every couple seconds while it gave off the sound of a beating heart.
Voldemort squeezed with his fingers. The heart began to expand through his fingers like a water balloon. Until it finally popped but it didn't explode into water, it exploded into coarse sand that trickled through his fingers and off the side of his hand and piled in a small heap on the ground.
"Congratulations." said Maleficent.
He practiced a few more times, and apparently had perfected the technique. He then tried it on himself. Putting his own hand inside his own chest and he pulled out his own heart. He could still feel his literal biological heart beating inside of his chest, but as he examined his own heart it was not red, at least not completely. There was some red in it but among the red was swirling a lot of cloudy black. And he also felt inside of his own mind, couldn't feel as strongly. He still felt his emotions but they were weaker, sort of dulled. But it did help, his conscience was weaker and he felt his horcruxes trying to put themselves back together to be a lot less.
"The darkness in the heart indicates the darkness within one's own mind, as well as the bad deeds that they had committed throughout their life." said Maleficent.
Voldemort then pressed his own heart back into his own chest. And then turned to the woman with the headdress of black dragon horns.
He had never felt this way about anyone before.
"You, Maleficent, are exquisite!" said Voldemort in a seductive tone.
They embraced, and they locked lips. And even though they had an audience they started to remove their clothes.
"Let's give them some privacy darling." said Cruella as she turned away and Ursula followed her.
Storybrooke
Voldemort was standing outside of Regina's house as Cora walked up to the front door. He was coming out of his reverie. He wondered where Maleficent was at present? Did she come over with the curse? Though she may have been within Cora's protective Dome when the curse was enacted. Maleficent was the most romantic emotional attachment that he had ever had. He even halfway thought of pursuing her long-term, but the curse was enacted less than a year later.
Wallowing in self-pity while Regina ate her roast beef and steamed vegetables there was a knock at her front door.
Who could that be? She thought.
She dabbed at her lips with her napkin and then went to the front door.
She opened it and standing there behind the threshold was none other than her mother.
"Hello Regina." said Cora with feeling in her voice.
Please review!