Harry Potter 1. In Search of the Lost Gaunts

_**The Ceremony**_

_In Search of the Lost Gaunts_

"Didn't diaries go out of fashion for boys your age?"

Tom Riddle stared at him carefully and then smiled, "It's a gift, sir."

"Gift, eh?" asked the shopkeeper, raising his eyebrow. He chuckled knowingly and added slyly, "From my experiences, girls don't like being gifted diaries."

"No, why?" asked Tom curiously.

"Think they're compromised," he shrugged. "My wife tells me that a diary is a girl's most secret weapon and that every girl's greatest fear is having someone read their thoughts. And they think when a boy gives them a diary there's something secret to it. Like he has a secret key and would sneak in later and try to read it when you're sleeping."

Tom smiled mechanically, "I didn't think of that."

The shopkeeper looked at him for a minute, "I hope I haven't given you any ideas."

"Of course not!"

The shopkeeper stared at him over his shoulder as he opened the box containing many notebooks and diaries. "Yeah well, just to keep my conscience clean, I'll give you one without a lock." He placed a brown bound diary on the counter. "This one can be opened by any one, you see. So your girl will take extra care all on her own." Tom ran his fingers around the book and then opened its pages and began sifting through the pages. "Everyone thinks the locks make it safe, they think if the keep the key hidden it's safe but that's the trouble with hiding things, see. Or keeping things secret. Once the key's gone or someone else gets it, before you know it everyone would have read it. This way, they'll know the score and do it themselves. After all there isn't any key to hide."

Riddle gave him the money and pocketed the book and left the shop. The book had nearly two hundred blank pages, unlined made of thick brown paper. It spanned the palm of Riddle's hand and fit into his pockets. But then Riddle's hands and pockets weren't of average size. Riddle trudged along the busy London street with the diary in his hand, opening it and looking at it carefully. _A diary is a secret weapon_, the Muggle's words entered his mind.A silly girl's toy. But it would do for his experiments.

Tom Riddle spent two of his twelve months in an orphanage on Vauxhall Street in London. That meant that he would sleep there at the end of the day but leave early in the morning. Tom was always more independent than the other children in the orphanage. More independent and more mysterious. He had been ever since he got that secret scholarship to that boarding school up north. The one which Mrs. Cole told them was part of a scheme by the sponsors of the institute to help poor orphan children. This made him the object of envy among the children - Tommy Riddle, the mean big kid who always got his way, who never got punished. But of course none dared to cross him. Unlucky things always happened to those who talked back to him, those who incurred his displeasure. Riddle talked to no one in the Orphanage and he would spend most of his time during his summer there, walking around London, going to favourable places and returning home at night to sleep. He slept in the same old bed he had been in when he got his invitation.

He remembered that day well. His room had been visited by Albus Dumbledore, who was the first wizard he had ever known and even if years had passed, he still feared the one man who saw him for what he was - A cornered animal all set to bite back. He had been shocked to find out a few days later when he entered Diagon Alley that Dumbledore was exceptional even among his own kind. The most respected and admired wizard of his world who had been teaching at Hogwarts for nearly twenty years and who as part of his responsibility to his school, welcomed muggle-raised wizards such as himself into the ways and customs of the world to which he belonged. He didn't know what to believe. All that power dedicated to burning wardrobes and punishing little punks. He had expected more. All the childhood fantasy stories from the books at the orphanage had sorcerers and warlocks who were capable of controlling people's minds and making other people do their bidding. Of course they were Muggle relics of the old days before the Statute of Secrecy but he didn't think that the magical world would decide all of a sudden to simply not exercise their will, not be their true selves. Albus Dumbledore can be satisfied with that mediocrity but Riddle was unimpressed.

Tom walked into the Orphanage, passing the matron along the way and didn't stop until he reached the desk of Mrs. Cole. She was busy writing a letter until she saw Tom Riddle approaching him.

"Mrs. Cole," he said politely.

"Yes, Tom!" she said cautiously, staring up at his sharp grey eyes.

"I – wanted to ask you about something," he said softly. _Time it right, each word, each syllable_¸ he thought. "You see, last year at school…I got to check some old records. I think I might have found something about my – my mother." He paused, letting it sink in. _There it comes_, thought the cold voice in his mind. _The sympathy, the concern, the understanding. She wants to say something. But she doesn't know what to say._ _Fool…she's just like that idiot Dippet._ He continued, "There's a village in the South where her family used to stay. I found out where it is on the map. I know which bus to take to get there and my friends lent me some money to go there. I only need to search there for three days and if I find anything I'll give you a call."

Mrs. Cole stared at Tom for several moments. She saw what she thought was longing for a sense of lost identity, a feeling that she knew all too well among her charges. She saw a handsome young man who she thought was an odd egg as a kid but who seemed to have done well at the school. And he knew how to take care of himself. She also felt bad for a young man having to borrow money from his friends to go to his mother's house. So she said that Tom could come back when he was finished. That the orphanage would still be open for him and furthermore, if he felt burden for having borrowed from his friends well the orphanage would pay for his trip. She gave him the money he needed, including bus fare going and coming, money for food and even offered him her brother's old suitcase for the trip. But Tom declined the last and merely accepted the money. He informed Mrs. Cole as he walked to the steps that the bus would leave at night and that he would be resting and reading in his room until then and that he would not want to disturb anyone. Mrs. Cole assured him that no one would disturb him in turn, the real intent behind the meaning of his phrase.

He returned to his room and looked around. It was bare of everything on the walls save for the wardrobe that Albus Dumbledore once set alight. Next to his bed was a trunk. It was packed with all his Hogwarts supplies. He sat on his bed and placed the diary on the bed and counted the money on his hand. As a small child, this paper money with the Queen's face emblazoned on it, with the seal of the Bank of England had meant the possibility of power. For the muggle, the most powerful were the ones who held money. The ones who everybody worshipped were the Royal Family, whose parades, weddings and divorces occupied the headlines despite the prevalence of Depression and an impending war, and then it was the businessmen, the movie stars, the lucky lottery winners. Or the gangsters who robbed, killed for money, and who travelled in stolen vehicles.

Now he had known that there existed golden money in the safest most beautiful bank in the world. The one run by those goblins. Unlike Muggle money which had special paper printed and minted to stand in for the amount of gold owned by the government treasury, this was gold, silver and bronze cast into coins by those creatures and each coin was unique and impossible to replicate. The ways of legally getting gold were the same in both worlds, thought Tom – You had to be born rich, you had to work hard and get rich at the end of your life, or you could get rich quick by a stroke of luck, a smartly timed investment or by marriage. But there were things greater than money in his world. Magic allowed a small orphan child to be the most respected and most admired boy in the school – teacher's favourite, prefect and model student, whom all the boys from all the houses respected and whom all the girls cast their eye on. It thrilled him to see the spell he cast on them all. How he could charm his way around them. Even the professors and the Headmaster fell in love with him. Save Dumbledore of course.

Above all things that mattered was power. Knowledge was Power, the Muggles knew well, but to use that knowledge you had to know how to charm your way around them all, how to bend them over to your will, make them all do what you want and make a smooth getaway so that you could clear your tracks. That was the Slytherin way. He smirked and smiled wildly. A sense of chaos drove deep in him. He had found out last year what he had guessed all along. He was the last heir of Salazar Slytherin himself. He had known he was special from the day those snakes started speaking to him. They were so useful, teaching him more about the land, about houses and places than he ever knew. Secret corners in London that bobby cops got lost in were cakewalk for him, because his friends told him how to escape and how to remain hidden and when someone was coming. They could smell them all. At Hogwarts he found the word for what he was – a Parselmouth. A rare but controversial gift, whose most famous practitioner was none other than Salazar Slytherin.

He had endeavoured since then to learn all about history. Of Slytherin and his time, of the school he built. He had known that Slytherin wanted to keep all the muggle influence out of Hogwarts that Gryffindor, that muggle-loving rabble-rouser opposed him. That the other two founders, Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw, weak willed as they were sided against Slytherin and He left. He grew old and lived far away from the castle, did not let any of his children enrol into the school he built and then died very old and alone. His surviving sons married into the families of Slytherin's own hand-picked students and Parseltongue was a common gift amongst the descendants. But the last wizard bearing the Slytherin name died before marriage. That was in the 12th Century. Riddle continued sitting on the bed and stared into the blank wall as his mind charted the trace of the bloodline, his spine tingling in anticipation. Over the years the Slytherins married into Peverells, Mowbrays, Marlowes – the first pureblood families who died away later on. Some of them married into descendants of the Hufflepuff line. The only child of Ravenclaw died before marriage and Gryffindor had no children. Making Slytherin and Hufflepuff the only two founders, magical families could trace their line to.

Slytherin he found out had left a chamber carved and designed by himself for use by his heir, according to a legend that had been passed orally from the first Slytherins downwards. Tom, who heard the story from Florean Fortescue and confirmed it with his friends, had endeavoured to find it and he had discovered it last year, in of all the places, a girl's toilet. He remembered how he had followed a squabbling pair of first year girls who were arguing loudly in a girl's bathroom, he had walked in and told them to return to bed, he had gone to the mirror to examine himself until his eye had caught a snake carved next to a tap. No other tap in that room had a snake carved on it and so Tom commanded it to open but his gift with snake speech and his comfort with the tongue allowed it come out in hisses and to his surprise, it revealed a portal underneath the bathroom. It took several days until he had learned to control the Basilisk, the most beautiful animal in the entire world. It had been left by Slytherin in the hopes that his true heir would discover it, which is someone who was as cunning and daring and full of nerve as Salazar himself and who had the gift of Parseltongue. Unleashing the beast on school had led to many injuries and one death. Tom of course had arranged everything so that he had gotten away, he framed a stupid oaf who had the audacity to raise an Acromantula in a trunk and the entire school had done as he expected them to do. Even he was surprised at how well it had gone. Of course, he would have to give the chamber a wide berth until later.

Tom remembered how the girl died. A weak, snivelling thing in glasses, a first year Mudblood from Ravenclaw. He saw how she stared into those eyes (which always remained shut when it faced him) and how they were inflamed and burnt and then she had fallen to the ground like a dropped doll, her eyes permanently blank. He had not planned for that death of course. Using the Basilisk was a game for him, to scare and provoke his fellow students. It had almost led to the school being shut and his one great kingdom permanently taken from him. But Tom did not desire any exile from his birthright, at least not until he was academically qualified. The chamber itself was a nicely done room, beautifully lit and finely brocaded but it only spurred Tom to further heights, to a greater destiny. He had known long before he discovered it, that he had a great destiny that he was Slytherin's last surviving blood relative.

He remembered all the time he poured over all the genealogy books, looking in vain for the name of a magical family of Riddle. He had been certain that his father after whom he was named after was a wizard. But he had never found the name of a single family nor did any of his pureblood friends whom he trusted heard of any family old or recent called Riddle. He had come to the point of accepting the chance that he might be a Muggleborn (the idea repulsed him terribly) when his mind turned on his mother. She had died without giving her name and the orphanage matrons didn't find any papers that told them who she might be. All he had was her last words which had named him and she had told them that he would be "Tom after his father and Marvolo after _her father_." Marvolo sounded like a wizard name, he had realized in that late hour in the library. He then searched for any historical Marvolos and at last come across a report in an old Daily Prophet that mentioned a story of a Marvolo Gaunt, resident of Little Hangleton who had attacked the Ministry to attend a hearing where his son Morfin was wanted for questioning regarding an attack on Muggles who lived there, and both father and son were sentenced to Azkaban. This interested Tom greatly who saw the Slytherin tradition of non-conformity and Muggle-superiority in the actions of his Gaunt forbears.

The family name on his lips, he had researched their history. The Gaunts were once very wealthy and prominent but controversial and violent. Muggle attacks and murders were common in their history and he had found their names on the family trees of the Lestranges and the Malfoys. One of the Gaunts was Minister for Magic. Montgomery Gaunt's reign ended in a Goblin Rebellion which began after he ordered the Aurors to suppress one demonstration by force, resulting in a shocking massacre. This minister was eventually assassinated alongside his wife in an Opera by assassins who were never caught and captured. And since then the Gaunts entered dishonour and decline. The descendants were spineless, and lacked the ambition and creativity of their forebears and eventually they disappeared. The last Gaunt worthy of historical record was Martha Gaunt, a popular seeker for a Quidditch team who had married a muggle. Riddle had paused to sneer at the possibility that he might have distant Muggle relations or might be a descendant of this matrilineal branch. It revolted him to have any blood ties to the muggle world. _But then what about dear Dad_ that cold voice had hissed to him. _If his family name isn't here then what is he? _Tom of course knew that not all the families were listed here, that genealogies were done by pureblood obsessives who would never admit relation to anyone regarded as outsiders until said outsider was famous and respected. It was well known that Dumbledore's family was a poor, lower order name that only began appearing on family trees after its most famous progeny's fame. It might be that his father was of a same story.

What drove him to the Gaunts was that they had reputations for being Parselmouths which had to mean they were connected to Slytherin. Parselmouths were rare and all studies had shown it was hereditary. He couldn't conclusively trace the Gaunts to Slytherin but maybe if he went there to meet the survivors he could learn more. He discovered the name of Merope Gaunt on a birth announcement dated to the late 1900s which meant that she was of child rearing age at the time of her father and brother's incarceration. He had to see for himself if Marvolo Gaunt, his grandfather was still alive or if he knew where his father was.

He had arranged transport as he had told Mrs. Cole but not as he had told her. He had no intention of riding any bus. _Even that ridiculous purple bus that those commoners use,_ he sneered angrily. Ever since Dumbledore had told him that all students who accept Hogwarts had to abide by laws he had been interested in how those laws were maintained. It impressed him to find the effective organization to prevent Muggle breaches, to maintain order. No single wizard on his own, regardless of power could break that society. He may fight hard and true but he would eventually be finished, broken or captured. And he knew only the surface. One needed an army and an army that included many magical creatures. Yet he knew there were ways to bend these rules. No under-age wizard was allowed to use magic was the rule. Yet the magic they used to monitor such violations was surpassable. Lestrange and Avery had done magic in their homes, he had seen for himself. The magic of a wizard dwelling and the failure to report violations by their parents had allowed them to use magic in their rooms, their basements and attics. Busybodies in Diagon Alley would keep an eye on his use of magic there but in Knockturn Alley one had free reign. And one got access to ways to hide oneself from the ministry in such places. Such as potions for concealment and protection from any magical tracing charm and also the way in which one made illegal portkeys. Portkeys were strictly regulated, he knew but provided one knew the location and address and could place it on a map, and arranged it privately and secretly, one could be safe.

Tom had been using portkeys for travel since his third year. He would make them in his final years at Hogwarts, set them at a precise time on a particular day. That was his way of travel across the country, towards important areas of wizard culture or to personal haunts such as his cave on the sea, the place that became his personal castle.

The portkey he would use today was a harmonica that he had bought for himself. He bought it in an ordinary muggle shop, his first private purchase on the day he received the fund from Dumbledore. Most would buy clothes, or food or some game. But he bought the harmonica to replace the one that was among the stolen contraband that Dumbledore had insisted he return. It was his object of choice. Simple and innocuous. As innocuous as the diary he had purchased. But no the diary was for another experiment, one that would need his return to Hogwarts and which he did not plan to proceed while living in the Muggle world. He would return to Hogwarts in three weeks.

The watch in the living room had told him that it would be another ten minutes to 1 o'clock and he had been sitting in this room patiently for the half hour it took for him to teleport out of the room. The mouth organ was in his pocket and any moment he expected to be released from this place. He walked to the door and shut it and then towards the window. He stared outside for a while. He briefly saw some of the children below playing football. At one point as a young child he felt jealousy at not being asked to participate in those games until he decided that he was above these things. His fellow orphans who would snivel and cry at times for their loneliness, their poverty and the abandonment and rejection that was part of their day to day life. He had nothing but contempt for those children who would pretty themselves up, would dress better like a poodle on parade whenever prospective parents came in. Tom aware of the power of his charm, always stood clear and played dull any time some sentimental woman came near him, intrigued by his good looks. He had no place anymore for replacement parents, especially the childless couples or some latterly bereaved young mother. It was all a delusion. Only someone unafraid of the truth would remain above the petty snivelling, and self-justifications which came under the guise of benevolent intentions. Even worse was when some of their former friends would visit, well-fed and well-dressed. He remembered Billy Stubbs adopted by a teacher who visited two summers ago. Tom had mocked him and asked if his new parents had bought him another rabbit and Stubbs horrified by that grotesque memory left quickly.

Yet, Tom had to know for himself the truth of his parentage. If only to settle all doubts and scores with the little orphan who didn't know he was a wizard. He closed the window, draped it shut. He sat intently, waiting for the moment. He placed his hand inside his robes and removed his dearest possession, an object he was unashamed of claiming he loved. It was thirteen inches, made of yew and it contained a core of a phoenix feather. He had bought this wand from Ollivander's, a shop in Diagon Alley, on his first day at Hogwarts. He had gone through many, many boxes in the showroom. Ollivander had told him that it meant he was a rare and difficult customer and that an ordinary wand would not do. Ollivander had to go into his study and bring out two boxes. Wands he claimed were his most recent creations. The first wand was made out of holly and also had a phoenix feather in it. He had thought it was right at first but it didn't work at all. The other wand was the latest Ollivander creation and that was his. Ollivander had told him it was rare when a newly crafted wand found a master on its very first try.

_It was charted out for him_, thought Tom. _My destiny. It all fits – the most respected wizard of modern times personally gives me my invitation to Hogwarts, I share with the greatest wizard the land has ever known the gift to speak to snakes, I get a wand that was essentially made for me and I am the last descendant of the founder of Hogwarts_.

At the last thought, Riddle experienced a sensation of a hook latching under his nose and he disappeared from his room in the orphanage.

The portkey had him landing inside a toilet. The smell made him nauseated and he walked out. The abandoned toilet was exactly where he knew it would be. On a city street next to an inn. He had found out about Little Hangleton in brochures he had looked up in the same shop where he had bought his diary. The shopkeeper had told him a little about the place, a doctor in the town was his cousin. He had called this doctor and asked for information about the place; information that would not be available in a brochure, such as the presence of a public toilet, out of service and abandoned next to an inn. Again careful not to mention the Gaunts, he had merely mentioned that he believed he had some relations there, presenting himself as an orphan boy in search of identity. He himself could not answer why he was so secretive about what he wanted. That had always been the way he did things. He never had anyone with whom to share or anyone with whom he desired to share things. And also the same sense of destiny that had filled him for so many years. He wanted to do everything on his own, to show them that he could carry out without any of them. _Great Slytherin prized those who were independent, who were resourceful and who wanted to prove themselves_, he thought with satisfaction.

He immediately walked down the road to the path leading to the corner of the valley within which Little Hangleton was nestled. Riddle thought the village was fine. Not unworthy to be deemed the land of his ancestors. _Even if it is filled with filthy muggles. _His eyes paused towards the big mansion that he saw over the village hills. He had seen images of homes like that in some books and newspapers in his childhood. They were homes for the Royals, the Lords, businessmen or movie stars. It had filled him with longing to gaze at homes like that in his youth. The one above was splendid, he thought. Nothing like Abraxas Malfoy's home but comparable. But he knew that the Gaunts did not live there in that house.

After discovering the existence of Marvolo Gaunt, he had sent an owl to the Daily Prophet with a list of further questions about the Gaunts, chiefly whether they still lived in Little Hangleton and where. He smiled arrogantly at the thought that he had placed the request in the guise of an eager student working on a Muggle Studies project, using the attack by the Gaunts on the Muggles as a point of reference. Lying and hiding was as natural to him as breathing. He was different with different people; he sent owls under many aliases and names, even under different handwritings. His memory allowed him to keep track of his different roles and disguises.

It was his way of being Tom Riddle, common Tom, poor handsome brave prefect who always got his way with people. At the same he detested the pretence and the bad faith of his life. He would not be Riddle forever, oh no. He would have a new name, worthier of his calling.

He paused at the path at the beginning of a small meadow. He removed a paper from his pocket and stared at it, the return owl with the answers to his questions had told him that the place was registered as The House of Gaunt in the Floo Network but it had been taken of the grid for more than fifty years and that there has been little information tracking the area since the arrest. The records had told him that Gaunt, father and son, had been committed to Azkaban but their sentence ought to have been done by then and since their arrest the Prophet did not follow up on them.

"…_Massterr Morfinn…Must return to him"_

Tom stared towards the grassy corner by the side of the road. He stared through it and found a garden snake slithering in it. _This is the place_.

He opened his mouth and communicating sharply in the language of the snakes, "_Take me to Morfin…"_

The snake paused and coiled to him. "_…You sspeak just like master…"_

Riddle smiled, "_I am master now…" _

The snake led him away from the roads and through the meadow. Riddle trudged silently behind the snake. He looked behind. The road to the village square was growing smaller. His eyes traversed the receding village landscape. He noticed a church and an outline of a graveyard. His eyes lingered to it for a short moment. His eyes then travelled to the great mansion which loomed over the village.

A short while later he noticed the outline of a dilapidated shack. He walked with a graceful step, an ominous sense of purpose filling his very fibre. It would be a day he would never forget.


	2. The Fall of the House of Riddle

Disclaimer : I don't own Harry Potter or any of it's characters. All rights belong to JK Rowling.

_**The Ceremony**_

_The Fall of the House of Riddle_

Tom stared at Morfin Gaunt's stunned body. He gazed around the Gaunt shack with revulsion and disappointment. There were no vestiges of any Slytherin glory here. A wasteful, useless sputtering man who was filthy and deranged was all that was left. He had dwelled so long and so hard on the Gaunts, he had known that they were struggling and that they were forgotten but this filth and this waste was impossible for him to accept. His mind went over the conversation he shared with him. The single phrase kept ringing in his years…

"_You look mighty like that old Muggle!"_

His hand gripped his wand tight and his breathing became hard. He walked to the door and opened it and gazed distantly, that house which he had longed and admired was the house of his father. _My father_, _a muggle. _He walked to Morfin and collected his wand. It felt stiff in his hands as if it didn't belong there but he knew that it would be for the best if he kept his wand untainted by what was in store for the Riddles. _At least for now_, he thought to himself, _when I use the other name…but before that_. He walked the trail he had trudged with a single minded determination and purpose. His mind was clear and cool. His indifference was something of a surprise. He had read about the curse in books, he knew the score and yet it surprised (and pleased) him to find no weakness inside him, no resistance. It was part of his destiny. He realized that the hours, days and years he spent dwelling on his family, on Slytherin and the Gaunts were only a step in a finely designed plan.

_Plan_, he thought quizzically. _No. A ceremony. A rite in a grand ceremony. And it was necessary to complete this rite to continue with the ceremony._

It mattered for him to know about them. To know of his mother and his father, of his forbears. He had to know about them if he had to shed them. He had to learn if he had to surpass them. He had to go beyond them. Marvolo Gaunt, the last patriarch of the family was dead. His son was a wastrel mutant. His daughter died disowned and dishonoured. _And yet there are still remains to be cleansed away_.

He had never done what he was about to do before. He had read about the most dangerous and forbidden curse in magical history and he knew the theory to perform it. He knew that it took nerve, it took power and yet as he began climbing the steep journey towards the large house that he now knew belonged to his family, he felt certain that it would not be difficult.

_So dear Daddy's a Muggle after all. _He had inherited his name and now…_he's been alive all along, living here in this splendour_ while he was wasting away in an orphanage. _He will pay_ hissed the cold voice within him.

The gates of the mansion were open and Tom sneaked in effortlessly. The garden surrounding the house was rich and well maintained. He looked around the area and his eyes stopped towards a gardener in the area. He was pruning flowers with a pair of hedge clippers. As if he felt his gaze he turned to face him. His eyes narrowed as he looked at him. Tom stood his ground as the gardener walked towards him.

"What business do you have with the Riddle House?" he asked gruffly.

His grey eyes stared into the gardener's face coolly, "I didn't know they called it that!"

The gardener screwed up his face and then added, "One of them students, aren't you? Interested in how big and old this is. Well Mr. and Mrs. Riddle won't have any visitors anytime soon." He paused and then added, "But their son Tom might show you stuff later."

"Son Tom?" he asked seriously.

"Well he's a bit old to be called that now, but then he's been living here with his parents ever since…" he trailed off.

Tom stared into the old gardener's eyes. He saw an old couple in outrage, he saw an ugly woman in revolting clothes embracing a handsome man in a luxury car. They looked like newlyweds. He didn't know what those images meant clearly but he understood what they implied. His father had caused a scandal marrying a poor tramp's daughter. _Probably played with her for a joke and then took her in and then left her to die when she was pregnant with me_, hissed the voice within him.

Tom nodded to the gardener and walked out of the gates. But he didn't go back to the village. He had enduring capacity for patience. He held Morfin's wand and cast a disillusionment charm on himself. He was invisible even to his own eyes. He walked through the gates, softly and silently as the gardener returned to his chores. He walked along the porch towards an entrance. This was a servant's entrance, he deduced. It was a bare room containing boxes, cleaning equipment, buckets and a mower. He walked through a door and found a stairway. He walked up and entered through an open door. His mind was full of chaos and anticipation. He entered the drawing room and looked around.

His mind was entirely objective. His eyes followed a staircase leading to a landing above. It then trailed to two entrances outside the room. He cast the revealing spell – the one that told you if anyone was in a place, hidden or not and where they were. Sure enough, he felt them through Morfin's wand – the presence of body heat from three containers coming from the entrance diagonal to where he was standing. He walked in that direction, softly and silently, his mind free of all angst and sense of righteous anger.

He entered into a dining room. There were three people seated closely at the end of a long table. He stared at them, scanning every detail. The old man had a finely combed hair style and was dressed in a well refined black suit; his wife's hair was elegantly bunched with jewels. His eyes reached the young man.

_The same hair, though his is lighter, the same eyes, the same handsome face._

"So Tom, dearest, are you quite sure about going through with this?" asked the old woman, smiling indulgently on her son.

"Yes mother," nodded Tom Riddle Sr. _This imbecile is my father! Still coddled by Mummy and Daddy._ He sneered at the family._ And this is what every precious boy and girl in that filthy bin daddy left me in wants._

The old man began, "You know, son, I think that this time you shall be rewarded with happiness."

"Yes, your father should know," the old woman said dryly. "He went through a divorce before he found me."

"Marianne will make a proud daughter-in-law!" supplied her husband with a smile. "And you can finally but that dreadful incident with _that girl_ behind you."

"It is behind me," said Tom Riddle Sr. firmly.

"No it isn't!"

All three Riddles jumped and stared at the entrance of the dining room.

"Who is it?" asked the old man authoritatively.

Tom waved his wand and the disillusionment charm was lifted. The three muggles stared blankly at the young man before them, who seemed to have materialized out of nothing. Tom Riddle Sr. looked horrified. A look of recognition appeared on his face as he drank in the image of the man before him. The young man was dressed in a black shirt and trousers, coated by a grey coat. The father stared at the young man's appearance, his face so like that of his younger days. _It can't be_.

"Just who are you supposed to be, young man?" asked his father sternly. "This is private property; you are neither allowed here nor were you invited."

"What's your name, Muggle?" breathed Tom furiously.

"Muggle?" asked the father strangely.

"It means," staggered Riddle, Sr. "It means that he's a wizard and we are not."

Tom smiled coldly, "So Daddy remembers."

The older Riddles looked at each other shocked at the revelation. They looked at their son in search of answers. The two Tom Riddles stared at each other face to face; the father then turned forcefully towards his parents and said, "He's her son."

Their eyes widened. The old woman stared at the young man and then said, "How did you find us?"

Tom looked at the woman pitilessly. They expected him and his mother to disappear, to fade away into the past. He waved his wand once, casting a powerful silencing charm around the room. _Wouldn't do good to draw attention. Best keep it quiet and private. _

"Crucio" he hissed out. He watched in grim satisfaction as the old woman writhed on the floor in searing pain like an electrocuted animal, her screams were followed by screams from both her husband and her son. He stopped and then said angrily, "I'll ask the questions. What are your names, Muggle?"

Tom Riddle Sr. faced his son and said, "My parents are Thomas and Mary Riddle and my name is Tom Riddle."

"That's strange," hissed Tom coldly. "My name is Tom Riddle too. Tom Marvolo Riddle. My mother died giving birth to me and in her final moments she insisted that I be named Tom after you."

His father's face grimaced in pain but he gathered resolve and answered, "She tricked me. I didn't know what she did but she made me think I was in love with her. As if I'd want to marry a tramp like that…she told me what she was, she said she could do magic but that I was a muggle...I thought I was going crazy…she said she was pregnant and I didn't believe her, I ran." He paused staring at his son in fear, "Magic's real then, isn't it?"

Tom stared at him for a long moment before saying, "I'll show you."

He pointed his wand to the old Mr. Riddle who was tending to his unconscious wife and said, "_Avada Kedavra."_

It was something else to see it, he thought. To see that rushing, force of green light thrust into a body. To see the body fall on the ground, dead before the drop to the floor. He felt the power building inside him, he felt it deep inside him, and it flooded through the wand and lit the room in a blaze of deadly green.

On seeing the unmoving body of his father, Riddle Sr. went towards it and tried to make it move but to no avail. His mother was seated unconsciously on the floor, still reeling from the torture she recieved at the boy's hands.

"Don't bother, he's dead," breathed Tom pitilessly. He pointed his wand towards his unconscious grandmother and in another fury of green, she was dead as well. The power he had felt from releasing the curse was intoxicating, he thought. The pure pleasure of dictating death with six syllables, of a single cutting calibration of wand, achieved by a desire to kill, a hatred for the fellow man's life. Yet he noticed that his breathing had become drier, his sense of smell seemed obscure and his ears registered Tom Riddle Sr.'s shocked outrage with little sonic difference than the sound of the clock ticking in the corner, the sound of the curtains fluttering. _So it does happen_, he thought surprised. He had assumed that the magical belief of cold blooded killing tarnishing the human soul was a superstition for the gullible and the weak but the loss of sensual differentiation had shown otherwise.

_It can wear off_, he thought lazily._Best complete the job at hand however._

His thoughts were broken off when a hand grabbed at his feet. He stared below to see his father staring up at him, his eyes broken and pleading. "You didn't h—have to kill them. They didn't know she was p-p-pregnant. Please bring them back."

"Bring who back," asked Tom haughtily.

"Them…" shrieked his father in anguish, "Raise them from the dead."

Tom stared into his father's eyes, broken, defeated and impotent and then spoke out slowly, relishing the anguish of the wretched muggle, "Nothing can raise the dead, Muggle. Magic is for the living people. The dead are gone and they stay gone."

Riddle stared into his son's twisted face, the chaos in the grey eyes he had inherited from him. "You are going to kill me." Riddle didn't answer. "I'm your father, Tom," his son's eyes flashed angrily at the sound of his name. "Please don't kill me…s-she wouldn't have wanted it."

Riddle laughed. It was a high cold laugh that rang menacingly, "Does Daddy think I love Mummy? You think I cared for that deluded wretch who dishonoured the Slytherin name by polluting his final heir with your blood. You think I care for that, now. She was a fool. A fool deluded by fancies she claimed was love." His father winced. "No, Muggle, this is solely between you and me. You knew about me, didn't you? You knew that she was pregnant when you left her, didn't you?"

"I t-t-thought she was lying…"

"LIAR" yelled out Tom furiously, his eyes wild with rage and pain. His father cowered away like a needled rat. He had never seen nor felt hatred such as the one in his own son's face, the face so like his own.

He screamed and yelled in vain, no one would hear him. "Yes," he yelped desperately, "I knew that she was pregnant, she told me what she was…I didn't understand anything. I thought I had woken up from sleep…I found her near me and she told me that she was my wife. I never wanted to marry her, I never loved her. She said she was a witch and that she was pregnant. I saw her belly. She told me it would be mine. I ran away, came back here. I have never left this village since then."

Tom's cool composure cracked and the righteous fury and sense of abandonment that filled the young orphan burst out, "You never stopped to think how I was, did you Muggle? Never checked to see if I was alive. Probably hoped that she died somewhere with me inside. Hope she fell and drowned in a swamp." His eyes were wide and furious as he saw his father cowering to his feet. "I was living in that filthy bin all by myself while you lounged in your happy home, with _your mommy and daddy_."

Riddle Sr. hissed furiously and he glared at his son, the fear and humiliation had been replaced by the rage that welled within him, "You are nothing but a thing, a freak of nature. _A monster_. Yes, I hoped you were dead, boy. I hoped that both of you were gone." He spat out venomously. "Your mother's family were a pack of tramps. Parasites they were, living of snakes and weeds." His eyes blazed as he rose to his feet and faced his son, who had returned like a plague from the past just when his bright future was settled. "You won't get away with this. My family is the most respected in the Hangleton area and we have friends in London. I can make a call to Winston Churchill and he'll drop the war just to talk cricket with me. **What are you**_?_ A filthy orphan boy, you are."

Riddle felt the power burning within him, the words on his lips all that he needed was a flick of the wand but he waited, it would not be prudent to rush.

"Silly foolish girl, pined after me she did. I saw her staring at me every time I passed that hole she called home. I use to pass by sometimes just to watch those eyes light up," he smirked. "But she snaked me in somehow, got me to marry her and slopped all over me for days and days," Riddle Sr, took the same relish from watching the indignation on his son's face as the latter had when he stood over him crying over his parents' body. "It comes back sometimes in nasty dreams. There were times with her I thought I was myself, I'd see her loom above me and but I couldn't feel a thing. Must be one of them pills she put in my cup, my friends in college talked about using them on some girls. Ha ha … it works on men too." He wavered slightly and then smiled insanely, half made with pain and revenge, "Imagine that, you're nothing but a…**popped** pill."

Riddle was finished suffering his father's spite. "_AVADA KEDAVRA."_

He stared at the floor. All three bodies were piled haphazardly. The parents formed an awkward cross over each other. His father was stumped on the floor. As he turned their bodies over, he was pleased to see the look of fear in their eyes. He had done it right then. He examined himself, noticing how numb his toes and fingers felt. The wave of hatred he had unleashed through his wand had cost him slightly.

His mind immediately returned to the matter at hand. He had considered the fact that his murders of the Riddle might attract attention as he walked along from the Gaunt house to the mansion. Using his Uncle's wand made things clear and simple for the Ministry. All they had to do was reverse the spells used and they'd find their answers. All he had to do was fix Morfin so that he says what he says. He levitated the three corpses and brought them into the living room. He lined them up on the floor. He returned to the dining table and cleared any physical evidence that the Riddles had been eating in the room. Tom's Muggle upbringing had allowed him knowledge of some of the police methods in searching for information and he knew that the Muggles had ways of sensing if some other person was in the room or not. Now it was impossible.

He placed another disillusionment charm and stared one last time at his victims before exiting the same way he had come. The silencing charm he placed had ensured that no one outside had listened to a single word that had been spoken inside the house. His revealing spell had told him that the Riddles were the only one inside the house and the only servant was the gardener…he stared at the gardener who was sitting on a lawn chair resting and eating, his hedge clippers on the chair. Riddle walked out of the building and began walking to the Gaunt shack.

He had stayed in the village for three days as he had told Mrs. Cole and used the bus fare she had given to book one back to London on the third day. He had little intention of drawing attention to himself by using magic so soon after the murders. He had been careful not to tell her which village he had gone to. The only connection to Little Hangleton that could be traced to him was the doctor he had contacted by phone but no one else had seen him there except for the gardener.

The two days he had passed in Little Hangleton allowed him to survey the impact of his actions. The Muggles in the village had gone in a frenzy as he had expected and Frank Bryce, the gardener was taken for questioning. He had been wary when the gardener mentioned seeing him in the vicinity but no one else had as he had been careful to avoid meeting people in the village. He had watched from a safe distance as wizards had come to the Gaunt house and taken Morfin out of the shack with a portkey. It had been child's play modifying his memory and feeding him the screams and faces of the Riddles, the sound and colour of the curses and of course obliviating his sole visit to his uncle. The only object which tied him to Little Hangleton was the ring. From breaking into his mind he had found out that this was Marvolo Gaunt's ring, a family heirloom. He had also known now of a lost heirloom, a locket which belonged to Slytherin which his mother had taken with her when she had left. He examined the ring softly in the palm of his hand as he stood in the crowd thronged outside the town hall where the aldermen were giving a speech about the loss of the Riddles. The small stone on the ring was not a precious stone nor did it seem to contain any magical properties. _Maybe it did once before it got cracked_. In the centre of the stone was a vague symbol, he made out a triangle. _Marvolo thought it belonged to the Peverells, one of the families the Slytherins married into_. This was at last the inexorable proof that he was descended from Slytherin. The locket which belonged to Slytherin needed finding. _A quest_, he thought with a smirk, _one more rite for the ceremony._

He listened dutifully to all the stories of the Riddles until he took the bus out of the village. How they had once been a thriving family, had owned a lot of the land and how there were no heirs left. That was fine with Tom. That meant that in a matter of weeks and months, the Riddles would slowly fade away. Dead names of large fishes in small ponds always faded away, especially when the last recognized son was a worthless spendthrift who did nothing with the family business and who had no heirs.

Tom would begin his sixth year at Hogwarts soon. And after that he would have to start a career. His scores were high, he had culled influence but the real reason for returning to Hogwarts this year was to conduct his research for his secret interest. Of all the people in the world, it was his father who had reminded him. He had asked Tom to reverse his grandparents death and Tom had told him that it was impossible. This was true and yet Tom was wondering about ways to protect oneself or reverse death in the eventuality that some unworthy wizard struck him by a stroke of luck.

_Magic is for the living_ he had wanted to live very long.


	3. The Tales of Fortescue

_**Disclaimer : I don't own Harry Potter or any of JK Rowling's creations.**_

_**The Ceremony**_

_The Tales of Fortescue_

_August 16, 19—_

_This diary begins as an experiment. It is a simple object, easy to use and repair and replace. _

He paused. The ink he was using was an ink of his own design. He had prepared it in Hogwarts. Before writing the brief entry he had decided to add another ingredient to the ink. His own blood. The blood was extracted from a small cut on the tip of his finger and then poured into a glass. He then removed a blood replenishing potion that he had prepared last year with his friends and poured drops of it into the glass. He watched with fascination as the brief drops of blood began replicating and duplicating itself. The potion worked best inside the body where the blood regulation was controlled by a beating and pumping human heart and flowed through active arteries. The blood now pooling in his glass up to quarter length would clot at once and become useless in minutes. However he had no intention to use it for transfusion, he poured the glass into the gourd of magical ink and watched as it congealed and mixed with each other. The ink he used now was something that could not be used by anyone else and that would only reveal itself to his eyes or to someone who carried his blood in their bodies.

It had been two days after he returned to the Orphanage. He had told Mrs. Cole that he had not found any information in his trip and that it had been a false step. She had mistaken his fatigue and exhaustion for disappointment and despair. _Probably thinks that I'm crying here or something._

He returned to the diary.

_My Name is Tom Marvolo Riddle._

_But I am Lord Voldemort. _

_That is my true name. The name of my father was imposed by some accident of birth that I am incapable of reversing. I reject it and its namesake. I will make my own way from here on. I will learn more about magic than anyone in the school. I aim to go further beyond the confines the world has forced on to me, the world of this orphanage and the world of the wizards. I obey no laws, I accept no order. But I am not an anarchist. Great Salazar Slytherin detested the reckless ways of proud Gryffindor. He would let any enter our world. I will impose a new order and new will. Mine will be a world where wizards will remain standing at the pedestal of the world standing over all the giants, the goblins, the elves, the centaurs, the werewolves, the vampires and below them all, the mudbloods and muggles. Society will be free of all indulgences to Muggle ignorance. We shall no longer suffer recalcitrance, submission and defeat. The new world will be a happy world where no child will be separated from the power that it bears. _

Riddle paused. _No, it's too much like that muggle from Germany bombing London_. He erased the entire paragraph and sighed.

Hogwarts had kept him safe from the Blitz as it had many Muggleborn students at school. Dippet and Dumbledore had even allowed some of the Muggleborn students to use magic to protect their houses and neighbours from the rockets and Riddle was reminded by the Transfiguration teacher to cast charms on his building walls. As such the Orphanage was safe from the Blitz attacks. Riddle personally would not care if the entire building was levelled and torn down but he didn't want interfering questions from the Ministry as to why a wizard residing in a building did not magically protect his fellow residents. The arrival of the Second World War was not a main concern for the wizarding world in so far as their buildings and houses were protected from muggle weapons but the Minister for Magic was using it as a chance for wizard-muggle solidarity. The ministry was even creating Good Samaritan legislation to charge and try wizards who were found wanting in their efforts to protect their fellow Muggle countrymen. The pureblood advocates were in the distinct minority insisting that aiding Muggles was a security breach and letting them die for their own war was only fair. Except of course it wasn't just the Muggles' war.

Riddle was interested in the war in so far that it concerned the wizarding world. He suspected that the Ministry let some of the Allied Heads know about Grindelwald. He was from Switzerland, the village with which he shared his name and he was expelled from Durmstrang, where he had started his career. He had built his army of Giants, goblins and many other dark creatures and an army of wizards loyal to him. He had already put the Imperius curse on many heads of wizarding societies in Europe, leaving it in disarray and that too in the midst of a brutal Muggle war. The level of chaos he was creating was unprecedented. His plan was simple, creating a new world for the greater good. Tom scoffed, _For the Greater Good._ He was unimpressed by Grindelwald, unlike some of his fellow Slytherins or friends in other houses. He was bent on creating a world where he and his army would dominate over the Muggles so that the wizarding world no longer had to stay in hiding and yet after amassing a force and army of great power across many wizarding nations, instead of taking on the Muggles as he had planned, he instead chose to support the Muggle dictators of Europe and help them win _their war_. This stupidity was intolerable to Tom as was Grindelwald's feeble attempts at sabotage such as sending house elves on aeroplanes to chew equipment and wires.

Of course Grindelwald's deluded puppets believed it was _For the Greater Good _to support the Muggle war believing that helping the most brutal and bloodthirsty of the Muggles win over the less brutal and defensive ones would leave fewer Muggles to bind to him. Riddle's own opinion about Grindelwald was that he was insane and unbalanced. He was known to constantly laugh and giggle during his attacks. "Giggling Grindel" was how the Prophet called him and it suited the fool right, thought Tom viciously. Parading himself before the whole world, justifying his actions, attending weddings and even occupying himself with girlfriends and mistresses, Riddle didn't know how anyone could take him seriously. His ghastly crimes and mass murders were messy, brutal and vulgar. It had no other interest than rampage and chaos. There was no purpose and no sense of ceremony behind these murders. 'The Unbeatable Grindelwald' was how they described him in Europe. This interested Tom greatly as not even the feared and wanted wizard or witch duelists commissioned by some of the magical governments had been able to do it. Grindelwald was too fast, too forceful and brutal. Even his basic disarming spells had left wizards and witches concussed. However there was more to magic than brute force and Riddle was arrogant enough to plan on ways of defeating Grindelwald, not out of any altruism but out of the glory and infamy any young wizard would get for defeating a feared and wanted dark wizard in his teens.

_That is if someone else didn't do it first_ he thought idly._ Dumbledore could do it. Everyone wants him to anyway. But would Dumbledore devote time to hunt down a crazed gloryhound._ Tom wasn't entirely serious of course. Tracking, hunting and defeating Grindelwald on his own required resources no one in the world would pass to a young teenager just out of Hogwarts. _More prudent to work on the Experiment_.

Riddle made daily diary entries into the book, filling it with all that he planned to complete before the year was finished. In his free time, he would make visits to Diagon Alley, first to change the muggle paper into real money and then to purchase whatever he needed. Occasionally he would run into some of his old Hogwarts friends and he even allowed Matilda Bennett, a pretty seventh-year Ravenclaw to treat him to ice-cream at Fortescue's. Riddle had enjoyed taking some of the girls out to dates and his smooth charm allowed him to be on best terms with them even after his attention left them; this kept him a regular on their gift list or to take him out on expensive treats he could ill afford. Beyond a certain level of sensual and physical pleasure, Riddle felt nothing for them. Some witches at school were intelligent and powerful of course. Some like Minerva McGonagall, the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain even earned his respect if not any personal interest or want of companionship. But he as yet never felt nor yearned for the love even some of Riddles' friends claimed to share with women (and occasionally men). Riddle saw people always as what he gained from others and what he had to give in return of their commitment to him. None of his relationships went beyond that. And he himself was an accident, _a popped pill_ exchanged between mother and father. No love as far as his life was concerned.

At the Leaky Cauldron, he had experienced the impact of the Riddle murders first hand from the wizarding world. It had caused a controversy because they were prominent wealthy muggles and the brutal murders gravely dented the wizard-muggle party line the ministry were maintaining. The case was open and shut of course. Uncle Morfin had a record for crimes against Muggles, including to Tom's great surprise, a prior attack on his father. It amused him slightly that he, the unwanted abandoned product of the union of the two feuding families had effectively destroyed both with a single stroke. Morfin was committed for life in Azkaban with Dementors to feast on his broken mind. He had confessed to committing these murders, his wand had vindicated it clearly and that was that. Tom was quite pleased with the outcome except for one small doubt. He had intended for the Riddle killings to be his final clearance of all the ancestry that tied him down. Now with the printing of the names of the Muggles on a newspaper widely circulated in his world, many would come forth and inquire about the coincidence that a similarly named Muggle was killed in the papers. Tom Riddle wasn't an unusual name of course. And he could explain it by suggesting that his mother named him randomly and it perhaps did not mean anything. It wouldn't fool Dumbledore however. Dumbledore who knew him from his orphanage, who had asked Mrs. Cole all about him and knew what he was really like. He expected Dumbledore to talk about these killings with him at Hogwarts and he began wondering what he should prepare to tell that old fool. _But surely he can't think I'd track them down and kill them and then frame someone else to do it. That's way too absurd to expect from any prospective sixth year, _he thought ironically.

Spending time at the Leaky Cauldron allowed him to think clearly about how far he had come. It gave him a profound sense of power in wielding a wand to kill and then succeeding to conceal his actions and divert attention away from them. On some level he wondered about his complete lack of any guilty feelings, of remorse for his actions. But Tom didn't feel any remorse for murders of a pack of Muggles who had lorded above their fellow villagers who subsisted on their own hard work and hard earned daily bread while the Riddles paraded their riches and luxury for all to see and envy. He felt no remorse for their deaths when they had abandoned him to a dirty bin of a home. As for Morfin, he was wasting away in that shack and there was hardly any difference between that place and a cell in Azkaban and there was no way he could let the Peverell ring rest on his filthy rancid fingers. Tom had taken to wearing the ring since that day. Besides, Morfin had hated those Muggles for taking away his sister and fulfilling what Morfin had wanted all these years would have pleased him and Marvolo, thought Tom.

Tom rose from his chair and walked out of the Cauldron pub and went to the back entrance. A few taps of his wand and he was in Diagon Alley again. It had astonished him when he had first seen the key commercial centre for Magical business, all those hidden shops and places living boisterously alone in their world. High above the district was Gringotts Bank. His eyes stared at it with the same hunger and greed that he felt when he first saw it coming into the alley. It was the safest and strongest of all banks in the world. Many had tried to break in and all died foolishly in their attempt to steal treasure that was never theirs. It was a bank of powerful magic that ran deep below the earth. Not even Grindelwald had dared to disturb the banks, signing an agreement of neutrality with the goblins.

Tom walked down the street to meet a person who had information that he sought – Florean Fortescue. It was slightly ironic that the man who possessed the knowledge he sought was a cheerful owner of an ice cream shop. But Tom knew that Fortescue knew a great deal about history, including the history that was not in the books. It was Fortescue who had told him of the legend of the Chamber of Secrets which he had been searching for at Hogwarts and which he had discovered late last year and unleashed on the student body. He had also mentioned to Tom, a mysterious lost wand made of elder that was supposed to be unbeatable, about the rich untapped resources of the Albanian forest and about famous dark wizards and their defeats.

"So Tom, the usual?" said an auburn haired young man in his 20s.

"What else can compare?" said Tom raising his eyebrow.

Florean smiled as he served Tom his favourite chocolate sundaes with snake shaped chips (as per his request) as toppings.

Florean began talking to Tom about the war's effect on business ("People want to be cheerful and so I send sundaes to their homes by Floo!") and also how even pureblood obsessives had taken the war as a serious threat.

"They think Muggles are beneath them but they don't want to live in a London without their Big Ben, Westminister Abbey, Piccadilly Square or St. Paul's Cathedral!" scoffed Florean, "Imagine that us pagans rushing to the defense of the Anglican Church."

Tom laughed. He removed the ring from his finger and showed it to Florean and asked him what he thought of it.

Fortescue looked at the ring for a minute, "Where did you get this?"

"Some fool sold it to me at the Hog's Head," lied Tom smoothly, _best to pass it of as worthless_. "I thought it was interesting and didn't have any obvious fake jewellery on it and so I gave him a few knuts for it."

"Interesting," wondered Florean. "This crest looks familiar but I can't place it." He returned it back to him and Tom placed it back on his finger. He decided to supply more information to his source. "He said that it belonged to the Peverells."

"The Peverells?" asked Florean frowning. He turned Tom's hand and stared at it again and then nodded. "Yes this is the mark of the Peverells."

"Mark of the Peverells?" asked Tom with interest.

"The Peverells" asked Fortescue in excitement, he loved telling obscure historical stories, "were one of the first Pureblood families. That is, the first ones to identify themselves as Pureblood as opposed to mixed blood or muggle blood sorcerors. They were among the first Slytherins as well. The first students who Salazar Slytherin handpicked for his own house when Hogwarts first started. But I told you about that."

"Yes," nodded Tom.

"One of the Peverells married Slytherin's youngest grand-daughter but he fell out of the family line when he sent her to Hogwarts which Slytherin forbade any of his immediate direct descendants in doing. The Peverells played a big role in the early years of the Warlock's Council, the government before the Ministry and they even culled influence with the Muggle rulers. They died out in a few short centuries. They were renowned for being powerful, reckless and self-destructive."

"Interesting," said Tom.

Florean laughed, "Well those are the kind of people worth telling stories about." He paused. "There are all kinds of funny stories about the Peverells, you find references to them in many contemporary accounts in their time and some of it even passed on as children's stories. But if you ask me most of it is just fanciful mythmaking of the sort that the Peverells would have encouraged. There is little reliable record of what they did in their time other than they were respected, feared and sought after. Some of them moved to France and there's probably more traces there than anywhere else of their forgotten grandeur. "

"Who were the most famous of the Peverell families?" asked Tom inquisitively.

"Well, so much of it is mired in legend and tall tales," sighed Fortescue. "The most well known branch were the three Peverell Brothers – Antioch, Cadmus and Ignotus. Ignotus Peverell has absolutely nothing to offer to history beyond his grave in the Godric's Hollow cemetery which has the Peverell mark on it. If you want to go there and see it for yourself that is," Tom gave him a look of utter disinterest. "One thing for sure is that he was a rare Peverell who lived a long life had left many children to continue the family line if only for a short period. The other two, well Cadmus killed himself. The most well documented of any Peverell is Antioch."

"Antioch went dark you see. Obsessed with power and he took to randomly duelling and killing for the sake of it. Just to show that he had great power. He eventually got killed in his sleep you know," chuckled Florean. "All that power and you still need a good night's sleep. Anyway…during his time, Antioch would cast this symbol wherever he went to show that he had walked through there. It was a symbol of provocation and fear. To put a bit of himself wherever he went. That must have started the fashion."

"What fashion?" asked Tom, not restraining his interest.

"Well any time Dark Wizards get together and decide to overthrow society or hunt Muggles and house elves and the like, they began using marks, symbols to style themselves. Usually they are crude copies of the Hogwarts House emblems, vicious looking lions with a deer in their mouth…that was Yardley Platt's style, or meaner snakes or even magical snakes like Runespoors. Some of them used the family emblem like Antioch did. Not very smart since it makes you easy to find but that was part of the provocation, telling people who you are and who is behind it and letting them know. Making a spectacle of it."

Tom breathed in these words, ideas lighting in his mind for various designs of fearsome symbols. He asked lightly, "Does Grindelwald have a mark?"

"Oh yes," said Florean frowning. "You know, my cousin in Germany sent me an owl once. It had a picture of a Durmstrang wall after Grindelwald left there. He carved a symbol in it, permanently scarring it. I'm sure that it looks like this. But then that's no surprise," he added with a dismissive wave of hand. "Dark wizards are eternally stealing ideas from their forbears. It falls in a predictable pattern. Grindelwald must have read of the Peverells and decided that it looked impressive and enigmatic, it looks like an eye inside a triangle (it might have influenced the Muggle Freemasons). As if his eye is everywhere and watching you always. Very theatrical." His tone was droll as if Grindelwald's poor taste was far too vulgar for his high standards. Tom concurred.

"Thank you, Florean," he said softly. He then decided that now was the good time to divert the conversation to his interest. "So Dark wizards are eternally stealing from each other, are they?"

"Oh yes," nodded Florean Fortescue. "Which is really dumb because all of their influences died doing all the dangerous and forbidden magic that they think will make them powerful and they do the same thing in turn and end up killing themselves."

"But Dark wizards aren't the only ones who kill. Aurors kill don't they?"

Fortescue nodded, "But there is killing out of duty to protect, out of self-defense, even killing out of anger and passion and then there is killing for power, for some insane twisted goal. Grindelwald for instance is insistent on creating an army of Inferi out of the many victims in his path and that magic is repulsive." He shuddered, "There is nothing more revolting than violating the laws of life and death and killing people magically and making them inferi is perverted."

Tom stirred, the very thing he was about to ask. "I hear that Dark wizards use all sorts of magic to keep themselves from dying."

Florean frowned, "My ancestor Dexter Fortescue's portrait is in my house and in his time there were problems of Dark Magic in society. He was the one who insisted on controlling the study of Dark Magic in Hogwarts. Oh yes, they used to teach Dark Magic at Hogwarts" he added seeing the hungry look in Tom's eyes. "But most of it was for research and restricted to the brightest and most trusted students in their NEWT levels and they worked with independent researchers in the field, all strictly under review by Hogwarts and Ministry staff."

"I'm just interested in it for…academic reasons," he said in a placating tone. His tone assured Florean that he had no plan on going dark or using the magic.

"Dexter told me that the Dark Arts were fundamentally related to death, Dark Wizards were known to use unicorn blood to keep themselves protected in case they were near death and that they all used various potions of other sorts to protect their bodies from various curses and side-effects but…most of them failed and most people ended up dying horribly or end up with unbelievable hideous transformations," shuddered Fortescue. "But then that's restricted to dark wizards who worked to protect their bodies. It's the souls they should be worried about. The usual negative emotions that drive Dark Arts cause damage to the wizard or witch's soul allowing their souls to be blackened and tarnished."

"Is there any magic to protect the soul?" whispered Tom, he had the air of setting up a mouse trap and was presently sweetening the cheese.

Fortescue shook his head, "I don't even know if there is a physical soul inside of you. Magic abides by laws and they are hard to apply to the incorporeal and the metaphysical." He stared at Tom and smiled, "I don't know anybody else who's came to my parlour to talk about the soul."

Tom smiled. Florean's knowledge of history was that of a devoted amateur. He knew little about how the magic functioned but what he knew he did not embellish and that was good for Tom.

"There are however stories throughout the ages of wizards experimenting on their souls," he said thoughtfully. "Even Muggle literature has some references to it."

"Muggle literature?" said Tom incredulously.

"Yes. Most wizards and witches don't read them unfortunately but they should," he said assertively. "Ever heard of _Faust_."

"Yes," said Tom. "That morality story of a man who sells his soul in exchange for immortality." As soon as he said it, comprehension entered him. Of course that was the Muggle explanation of that magic.

"Yes," said Florean. "Our magical stories and historical facts mention many cases when witches and wizards believed they could be immortal if they mutilated their soul, living less than whole lives. It's something that's killed many people. They all died in their attempt to do it. There's no such thing as immortality any way."

Tom then pressed on, "I read in one of the magical books, it mentioned something. It calls it the most vile and evil of magic but it has a name, Horcrux."

"Horcrux?" asked Fortescue puzzled. "I don't know what a Horcrux is but I think Dexter mentioned that it was banned from his school. Why are you interested in it?"

Tom shrugged his shoulders, "Because it's banned."

Fortescue laughed heartily as Tom walked away.

The word Horcrux had resonated ominously from the moment he came across the word in _Magick Moste Evile_. He yearned to gain knowledge of this forbidden word. Yet nothing in the Hogwarts library had told him anything about it He learnt more about the Horcrux from talking to his friends families than anywhere else. Lestrange was especially helpful as his mother was ever knowledgeable about the Dark Arts. Of course they talked about the Dark Arts as if it wasn't anything real as if it was some idea worth considering, worth entertaining but not putting to practice, as he would be doing. He had learnt that the Horcrux was first associated with the breeder of Basilisks, Herpo the Foul. He had succeeded in casting out a fragment of his soul out of his body to prevent himself from dying. The Horcrux meant "the cross which stood on end" roughly translated from its Latin and Celtic origins. It meant precisely an object which bore the weight of living at the end of one's life. The man who created a Horcrux could not be properly dead even if killed by the most powerful Muggle and Magical means. Once cast out of one's organic shell, the soul had to be grafted onto some other earthly element. Herpo chose one of his Basilisks for the task. Assuming it would be impossible to destroy and therefore keep him safe. Eventually it died when his enemies released a coop of roosters to its nest, their cries destroying the beast and leaving Herpo unprotected.

Later Dark Arts theoreticians attempted to use inanimate inorganic objects as objects fit to bear fragments of their soul. Yet it had led to such horrific catastrophes and caused such mutilations that eventually few even attempted to do it. Tom was fascinated with this most priceless of magical secrets. He had become fascinated with the idea that one could be protected from death. None of the many poisons and curses which otherwise would have killed him destroyed Herpo the Foul. The Killing Curse had not yet been available in his time and Tom didn't know if the Horcrux was safeguarded from the killing curse. Those who came closest to death ended up becoming inhuman and vapourish, not yet a ghost but a kind of parasite that eventually withered away when the Horcrux was destroyed.

Of course there was the exact questions – How is a Horcrux made and what objects worked best, and most important of all to Tom – if one could make more than one?

This would be the Experiment he would undertake. Perhaps his life's work.


	4. Objects of Desire

_**The Ceremony**_

_Objects of Desire_

Sixth year was a crucial year for the students of Hogwarts. The began their NEWTs, the highest grade available in Wizarding Britain. They also selected the subjects that they would specialize in, which they chose as their best. Tom chose Transfiguration, Potions, Arithmancy, Ancient Runes, History, Herbology and Defence Against the Dark Arts. He felt that he had mastered Charms and had no need to continue studying spells that he already knew. His major choices reflected his interests in channelling his might into the very basis and functions of Magic. Classes had been relatively simple and easy. Yet for Tom, his work as a student was a piece of theatre. All the clubs, the papers, the essays and the points he earned. He no longer had any interest in showing his brilliance to the teachers and seducing them with his precociousness and charm. Most of his time was devoted to learning about the Horcrux.

As Fortescue had told him, it was banned completely from Hogwarts. No book taught it and no professor would mention it even idly. And asking out loud would attract attention that he never wanted, especially the attention of Albus Dumbledore.

True to form, Dumbledore had invited him to stay after one prefect meeting and talked to him about the murders.

"The name of the Muggle family is Riddle," he said calmly, his blue eyes piercing through his. "Thomas and Mary Riddle and their son Tom. Tom here is in his late 30s and would have been in the right age of your father…"

"Interesting," he said offhandedly. His eyes remained cool, clean and indifferent.

"Here's a picture, Tom," said Dumbledore presenting another newspaper and flattening it on the table.

This time, Tom could not prevent the look of blank shock on his face which he was sure Dumbledore noticed even if it only appeared for a brief second.

"I didn't know you subscribe to Muggle newspapers, sir" he said steadily. "I thought it uncommon for a wizard such as yourself."

Dumbledore smiled and then continued, "One has to read Muggle newspapers if one wants to see movie timings, or read book reviews or to keep track of the war effort and the events in the colonies." He peered at Tom and then added, "Our newspapers tend to be quite narrow minded. Granted the Muggle papers can be just as bad but even then there are more possibilities." He continued, "I was raised by a family of wizards, Tom and to me all that you took for granted in your childhood as a Muggle is a source of wonder and delight for me."

"Okay sir," he said shortly. He looked at the black and white still photographs of the three Riddles. It had appeared on the sixth page under the crime beat and the mystery of their deaths had found an expert considering several vague poisons, the possibility of them being gassed or tortured subliminally by invisible radar. There was no doubt that the young picture of Tom Riddle Sr. resembled him greatly. "So this man is my father?"

"Don't you know, Tom?" asked Dumbledore quietly. It was impossible to know what Dumbledore really meant even when he asked the idlest questions. No person in this school was harder to predict and this conjured hatred and dislike for the old man in Riddle's heart.

"No."

"Mrs. Cole informed me that you had believed to have found information on your father during your final weeks there." Tom would have sworn many insults and nasty remarks but he remained calm. "She said that you came back believing it was a false alarm." _Been keeping a right little eye on me, has he!_ hissed a voice very much like the young 11-year old punk that first met Dumbledore.

Tom stood still. He then decided to speak, "I found out about the Riddles at Little Hangleton in an old Muggle newspaper in the public library. I didn't know for sure who they were so I made some phone calls and I left by bus. When I got there," he arranged his voice so that it resonated heavily, "everyone in town mentioned they were dead and I didn't know what to do, so I took the next bus back home."

"I see," said Dumbledore finally. Tom wasn't sure if he believed his lie or not, it was hard to tell.

He continued, "I don't know if he is my father, though. Maybe Mum was from that village and she liked this man and decided to name him after me. He was a big man in that village they say, very rich." He added in his best 'hopeful and earnest' voice, "Their murderers were caught by our justice, right?"

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "Mr. Gaunt comes from a family known for violence and disturbance in the area and had a prior conviction to Azkaban and he confessed to the murders, wielding a wand which by the reverse spell effect was detected as the instrument which led to their deaths." He smiled oddly. "It's almost too neat." Tom did not dare to make a single movement. He stood still and was calm from the outside, inside, his blood was boiling in rage and fear.

"You don't think he did it, then?" asked Tom purposefully, raising a curious eyebrow.

Dumbledore shook his head, "It is very likely that Mr. Gaunt did indeed kill these unfortunate people. It is strange however that a crime committed in a rage leaves so few traces. They usually leave a bigger mess, especially for someone lacking magical education and in fact English speech." Tom remained so still that he might have been bound magically and rooted in his seat. "Mr. Gaunt only seemed to speak in Parseltongue, his trial had to be conducted by translation. I supplied this function."

"You are a Parselmouth," breathed Tom, unable to restrain himself.

"Not a natural one," said Dumbledore calmly. "I cannot carry a conversation with a snake, communicate with it by will. I can understand and speak it perfectly well with a human who speaks this language. As a member of the Wizengamot, I presided over the Gaunts' trial and supplied this function. I found Mr. Gaunt's actions strange, the efficiency, and the refinement with which he committed this murder, especially since his family nurtured a feud with the Riddles." Dumbledore paused, letting it sink in. "From the investigation in the house, there was no magical traces of anything else in the room. It appears he apparated directly into the drawing room, killed the three Riddles and then disapparated back to his shack. Very systematic for a crime of passion, he had to know precisely where the Riddles were to apparate to them but this would only be possible if Mr. Gaunt was a regular visitor to the Riddle House, and even then to apparate to them knowing exactly where three Muggles were." Dumbledore raised his hand to his temple and rubbed it. "But then, perhaps Mr. Gaunt is more devious and more rational then I give him credit for."

Tom took a deep breath and spoke deliberately, "There's no mention of this Mr. Riddle marrying and he didn't have any children. But then maybe he wasn't married to my mother." His shoulders drooped in feigned fatigue. "In either case, I can hardly claim any inheritance." _That's what he expects, thinks I want my hands on their filthy money_.

"Very well, Tom," said Dumbledore dismissively.

Ever since then, Tom had been keen to keep distance from Dumbledore yet it was hard as Dumbledore was Deputy Headmaster and Gryffindor Head of House which meant that he had a key role in school affairs and that as a prefect he had to constantly deal with him. And always he would find Dumbledore's eyes lingering in his direction, keeping a close eye on him. Riddle refused to let his guard down. He knew that Dumbledore was a skilled Legilimens, that was how he had seen him for what he was the day he had met him, but he had learned magic to protect himself from him. Yet Dumbledore was indomitable and he had seen through him, was the only one who saw through what he suspected was a perfect airtight case. Of course, Morfin wouldn't have brains to make things clean and simple as he had. Dumbledore of course was also the only one who protested against the Hagrid boy's expulsion and he had seen through the flimsy scheme he had improvised then and he had arranged for Hagrid to be the gamekeeper's apprentice. _Of course he has no proof, no evidence. I made sure of that. He can't do a thing but be an interfering fool hoping to scare me into tripping,_ he sneered, _well we'll just have to see that._

In his spare time, Tom dwelt on the Horcrux hoping to learn more. It was on one particular day that he dwelt on it that he made one of the greatest discoveries of his life.

He was walking on his way to his prefect's patrol and was walking along the seventh floor corridor thinking about the Horcrux and its mysteries when he suddenly noticed a door appear out of nowhere. He pulled out his wand and tapped it several times, establishing it as a real door and a real space inside it. He opened the door and stepped inside, his wand outstretched. It was a bare room much like the room in his orphanage. He noticed the bed was similar to the one in his room. He walked towards it and found books stacked on top of it. On a closer look, he saw that it wasn't just books but also pieces of scroll and unbound parchment. His hand reached the book on the apex of the pile. The title was _Secrets of the Darkest Art_. It was a very fragile, very old book and it smelt of bad parchment. Tom opened it and began reading, parsing through the pages. When he reached midway into the book, his hands began shaking. In these books were the ways and means of Horcrux magic. The very thing that Tom had been searching for and now a door opens suddenly and gives it to him. He began examining the other parchments and scrolls and found more information on the Horcrux. His mind was alight with delirium. He could not go to his prefect's patrol now. He rushed out of the room and did not stop until he met the Head Boy, Edgar Bones. He told him that he was unwell and would not patrol tonight and the Head Boy gave him his exemption. He practically glided back to the seventh floor in giddy fervour.

It disappeared as soon as he approached there. The place where the door had been was gone. His happiness had turned to anguish and he began pacing the corridor looking at the wall space from several different angles. He pointed his wand towards it and muttered many revealing charms but they did not work. Did not reveal anything hidden there! He paused, thinking of when he had found the room. He did not expect to find it. He had passed this corridor many times and the walls remained blank and tonight it suddenly revealed to him a hidden room. What had changed? He began pacing. He was walking into the corridor thinking about the Horcruxes…he stopped. A smile lit his face, could it be so simple? The room was shaped exactly like the one in his orphanage where since childhood he would read silently away from the other children. It was styled exactly to his wishes and desires.

He began walking along the corridor, pacing back and forth thinking of the Horcruxes and then on his third attempt, exactly as it did ten minutes ago, the door appeared. Riddle walked in slowly, anxiously, he was careful not to blink in case that broke the spell. He entered the room and it was exactly how it had been when he left it. The books were there. Tom spent the entire night in that room, reading the books until midnight. Fortunately for him, the next day was the weekend and so he had no classes to be early for. He continued reading the books in the morning, stepping out briefly to his common room only to placate his friends about his absence from bed and to borrow parchments and his diary. Riddle spent the entire weekend learning all he could about the Horcruxes, taking copious notes and making many long entries into his little diary. The room he had entered was filled with a magic beyond anything he comprehended, it supplied parchment and extra ink when he ran out of supplies.

In the weeks that followed he would examine the room carefully, passing it by thinking of different things he wanted gauging the level of its power. It supplied everything save food and drink which was an exception of the Elementary Laws of Transfiguration. He did not know how these books entered the room. They were rare obscure books and were extremely hard to find anywhere else. Tom then decided to see something for himself. He walked out of the room and walked past the door three times fixing his mind on the exact mouth-organ he had used a portkey. That mouth-organ was currently in his orphanage. And Tom had magically marked it with his initials. When he entered the room he found it filled with mouth organs but not one of them had the magically carved initials. The limits of the room were that of time and space. He had reasoned that the books and articles one obtained in the room was what was available at any place in the castle, even if it was obscured or hidden or out of bounds such as personal studies of headmasters or professors. This allowed it to replicate the precise books in this room. But the magic did not extend outside. The room could not replicate a simple magically marked mouthorgan because it had never entered Hogwarts.

A key portion of his sixth year was devoted to participating in what was known as The Slug Club. An organization run by Horace Slughorn which allowed his favourite choice students from across the houses to meet and befriend key figures in magical society. Riddle enjoyed these gatherings in so far as it allowed him to meet and impress people outside Hogwarts and he ensured that no one who passed him by forgot him. How handsome and how kind he was. He even managed to win himself a dance with Ekaterina Zabini, who was in her seventh year when he had started Hogwarts and was now a highly prized society heiress. He enjoyed waltzing with her in the room, enjoyed the looks of envy and longing on those of his friends and fellow Slytherins and he enjoyed the teasing glances and barely concealed desire directed his way by the girl who insisted that Tom call her Katya as all her friends did. Her family were wealthy exiles from a Grindelwald-terrorized Albania and she would have been sent to Durmstrang had they not come here.

"But thank heavens I did," she had told him, her English accented elegantly by the traces of her mother tongue. "Hogwarts is so much brighter and beautiful. And England is safe from that madman's delusions." She paused and stared at Tom with her deep grey eyes which she noted was the same colour as his though his was lighter, "I saw him once."

"Really?" said Tom softly, he was in the process of refilling his plate with some pudding, "Grindelwald?"

"He wanted me to call him Gellert," she hissed the word as if it was an ugly beast. "I was nine years old and he wanted my father to join his cause. He said that there was no stopping him and then he saw _me,_" she trembled, "he turned to me and told my father with a smile, he smiles like a child. He acts like he has never grown up. He wears bright green robes, just like that Peter Pan show I saw once. I digress," she said with a smile, "he looked at father and said that he didn't know that he had a daughter, he told me that I took after my mother and then mentioned how he had known her in Durmstrang and tried in vain to woo her and now it seems that he had a second chance…"

"That is disgusting," said Tom in sincerity.

Katya laughed, "What else can you expect from a Swiss?" Tom laughed genuinely at the girl's wit and the two of them stared at each other flushed with pleasure. Katya continued softly extending her joke, "The Swiss are all so peaceful and pretend to be so tolerant, eventually someone had to bear the weight of the hypocrisy and repression of the land?"

Tom smiled, "England's like that."

"I suppose so," her shoulders shivered slightly. "Can we take a walk?"

Tom nodded and kept his plate. They had to dance with the other couples in order to avoid being seen. The music used was American muggle jazz which the Wizard Wireless had used as part of the wizard-muggle solidarity of the war and also the great demand and popularity of said music. Some of the identifiable purebloods remained away from the floor but even some of Tom's most fanatical friends were doing two steps with their girlfriends. Tom took Katya out of the dungeons and the two continued laughing and chatting all the way to the grounds, until Tom caught side of unwelcome company – Dumbledore and the Hagrid boy in deep conversation.

He urged Katya to stop as he overheard them talking.

"…I swear Professor, he doesn't really understand."

"Maybe, Rubeus but Thestrals are very difficult to manage," argued Dumbledore firmly.

"Look, they are really rare and you won't find 'em anywhere else in England if we take them in, it'll make Hogwarts more special," answered the eager boy. He was very tall and had shaggy hair yet the youth and enthusiasm showed otherwise.

Dumbledore sighed, "I personally think it might be a good idea. It's just that Headmaster Dippet might object especially given recent events."

Hagrid's face fell and there was no denying the resentment in his voice, "I thought my job would be too help keep the grounds and preserve Hogwarts' beauty. It'll make the Forest grander. And with the Thestrals we can cut down on some o' the boats and make things quicker for travel." His voice continued, "They're not like Aragog and even Aragog wasn' like Aragog…"

"I believe you," said Dumbledore softly. "What we can do is keep them in the back area of the forest, not too close to the centaurs and well away from the students range. You and Ogg can train them in the meantime." Hagrid's face lit. "And when they are ready I will discuss it again with Armando."

"Who is the one talking to Dumbledore?" asked Katya forcefully, following the intensity of Riddle's gaze.

"That fool is Rubeus Hagrid, an idiot whose father pulled strings with Dumbledore to get his half-giant son into school," said Tom with a satisfied smile.

"Half-giant?" asked Katya shocked. "How is that even possible?"

Riddle laughed cruelly. It carried in the air and both Dumbledore and Hagrid turned towards them. Hagrid's shoulders stretched heavily as if he was restraining himself. Dumbledore however stared at them politely.

"Ah Tom, I see you are showing a dear ex-student of mine the grounds of her former school," he said warmly.

"Yes," said Tom smoothly, walking forward with Katya who followed the interaction of the two wizards with interest. She had known Dumbledore as the greatest wizard of the land and the most respected of authorities but to hear the way Tom talked to him, one would expect them to be rivals. "You seem to be doing the same thing." He paused to give a supercilious grin to Hagrid whose black eyes stared at him in righteous anger.

"Rubeus is a member of the staff," said Dumbledore, with a hint of warning in his voice. "He is aid and assistant to the Gamekeeper and the Professor of Care of Magical Creatures."

"But he is a servant," stated Katya baldly. "I have heard of your graciousness and generosity, Mr. Dumbledore but surely you don't consider this…Rubeus here…" pointing jerkily to Hagrid, "to have the same standing as you do."

Dumbledore smiled and bowed to her, "When you get to my age, Miss Zabini, you often find that you have been someone else's servant while those we deem servants are masters of their small world. As your father would undoubtedly tell you." Katya winced and glared at Dumbledore. "My brother Aberforth was a most poor student and he left school after completing his OWLs and he did poorly though he gained a reputation for being a fearsome dueller." Dumbledore laughed softly. "Since then he has taken to goat farming and has a nice residence in Hogsmeade and has recently purchased the lease for the old Hog's Head Inn and he has much more free time and more time to travel than I do." He added shrugging his shoulders. "Of course I belong at Hogwarts but there are times when I wish things were different."

He and Hagrid walked away at a pace, without a backwards' glance. Zabini and Tom walked away to the grounds silently. Tom stared at the pair in intense dislike though his mind ruminated on Dumbledore's words – "master of their small world". He then remembered a reference to Katya in Dumbledore's conversation.

"What did Dumbledore mean when he mentioned your father?" asked Tom after a short while.

Katya stared at him softly and then said, "He wants me to get married." Tom paused, feeling a strange pang inside him. "We don't have any money, you know. The Zabinis were very affluent in Albania but here we are small and anonymous, much more vulnerable. Father wants to give me the best comforts of course but things would have been different if he had a son. Much more respectable, strapping and strong like him. "

"Who you are to be betrothed to?" asked Tom, not hiding the stirrings of desire and jealousy in him.

"Blake Moon," she said warily. "Nice, rich and English, Pureblood of course and old money to his name, and very well connected to the Ministry." She snaked her hand around Tom's shoulder and leaned to him as she continued, "Father doesn't know how to settle here, you know? My mother well, they were never close and she has had other lovers and he's had his own friends to meet. They took care of me the best they could and left home for me but there was no love in that home."

Tom smiled at her weakly, he knew what it meant to be raised without any presence of love though he had moved on to removing any want or need for it.

She stared at Tom with wide eyes of longing, "I'm staying at the Three Broomsticks tonight." Carefully choosing her words, she continued, "Can you tell Professor Slughorn to send someone to escort me there, unless of course, Mr. Riddle is brave to cross the school boundaries," her lips twitched slightly, "and risk his prefect badge to keep me safe from this dark night."

Riddle smiled widely, showing his perfectly maintained teeth, "Well I _might_ but perhaps Miss Zabini might be interested to spend some _more time_ at school before she leaves. I happen to know a quiet place."

Katya's face had a mocking look and she openly giggled, "Mr. Riddle, I had no idea you could be so brazen. Where can I spend time quietly in this school. Where I remember how difficult it was to keep secrets, and hide things, where no one is sure of being overheard."

"Well I know a place that no one knows in this school?" he said mischievously.

"You mean the Chamber of Secrets you helped to close down?" she retorted playfully, placing her hands on his shoulder.

"Well that too," said Riddle placing his hands around her waist as she kissed his cheek and buried her face in his shoulder. "But I know some place," he leant in and kissed her on the lips, a kiss she returned with earnest, "_better._"

It was an hour until Katya had left the Room of Requirement, well after the party and Tom was certain that neither of them would ever see each other again. Not that it mattered to him.

"Any chance I can get invited to the wedding?" he breathed dryly, resting his hand on his shoulder as he stared at her face. They were both lying down on the bed staring at each other.

"I don't know," she wondered aloud mockingly, "Blake dearest would it be okay if I invited a nice handsome sixth year who I deflowered the other day?" She laughed heartily.

"I thought it was boys who deflowered the girls?" asked Riddle childishly.

"Not when I am older than you," she said kissing him. She then glanced at the ornate room around them. It even had an enchanted window that showered romantic moonlight into the room. "This place looks just like my room…but like my house in Albania…it's marvellous."

"Yes," said Tom with a sigh. "That's why I asked you to get to the room. If I did it, it would look like my room in the Orphanage."

"The Orphanage?" asked Katya in shock.

"I was raised with Muggles," he said bitterly. "My father abandoned me after he found out that Mum was a witch and she didn't use magic to save herself…she died just until after she gave birth to me, naming me after the same man that abandoned us."

"You poor dear," said Katya, kissing him compassionately. "Maybe she couldn't save herself."

"What do you mean?" asked Riddle angrily. The change in temper was so sudden that she started.

"I meant that it often happens that when," she continued softly, "witches, or wizards, when they suffer a broken heart like when their loved one has betrayed them or died, their powers get affected. It happens commonly." She said sadly, "the most powerful magic in the world is love and when that is gone or compromised, people tend to loose their powers or it weakens or fade away."

Riddle stared at her for several moments before laughing, it was not the coy young laughter that had seduced the girl earlier but it was cold and cruel, "That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard. I can do magic beyond anything in this school and I didn't need love to wield it." He stared at her with complete malice and distaste. All lust and desire for her had disappeared. _This filthy hypocrite will teach me about love_.

Katya winced away from the boy she had thought so beguiling and so charming. She sat up and walked to a chair containing robes and began slipping on the clothes she had disrobed when she and Tom had entered the room.

"Why do you rush away princess?" asked Tom menacingly, "Was I not satisfactory?"

"You were perfectly charming," she said coldly. "Though I have had much better." She glared at him, "That was your first time wasn't it?"

Tom paled vulnerably, his face was replaced by an ugly sneer as she continued, and "Yes the boy who doesn't believe in love wants to have love made to him even if he can't do it very well himself."

"What do you know about love?" hissed Tom, "you're about to be engaged to a fool who'll parade you around the world like a prized Pomeranian." He spat, "A finely pruned bitch."

Katya Zabini glared at him, she finished slipping on her dress and wrapped her scarf back on and then walked to the door only to find it gone. "How?" she turned to face Tom Riddle who was now standing on his feet glowering at her.

"Open this door, now?" she was now wielding her wand. Her mind was in a frenzy at the mess she had gotten herself into. She stared intently into the cold eyes of his as he gazed into hers.

"You know nothing of love, silly girl!" he hissed. "That muggle you liked so dearly," his voice lilted into a rhyme, "whose wife was so very pretty, whose kids were so cute and sweet, and who you hexed betwixt your sheets."

"How…did…you?" she gasped, her wand dropping to the floor. "You can read my mind, can't you?"

"The mind is a many layered thing, just like yourself," he breathed malevolently. "I can't call it reading. I think you would like Mum she was a fool just like you."

"It wasn't fair that he had to belong to someone else," she wailed angrily. "I could have him any time with my magic…"

"…but it's not enough is it?" said Riddle harshly. "You wanted him to really love you and you brought misery into his life, destroyed his family, didn't you? All because of your foolish fantasy of love."

"You don't understand. I was lonely and he was so kind to me and so generous and so handsome…" she trailed away miserably.

"You would give up your father's noble name for some Muggle plaything who doesn't even believe you exist?" drawled Tom, "I see now, it's not Love that is powerful magic. It's stupidity. Stupidity that reduces someone as fair and intelligent as yourself to the filthy lows of a whore." Tom stood up and gathered his clothes and began wearing them. He did not why he exploded at her, why his kindness and sincere infatuation with her had evaporated so completely that nothing filled him inside except contempt for her and his loathing for his own weakness for her charms. To think he had expected so long for this experience only to be purged out of all desire.

"My advice, Katya" he hissed coldly as she collapsed on the bed, "my advice is that you marry this fool and then after some time has passed," she stopped crying as she stared at him expectantly, perhaps hoping that he would ask her to wait for him, that he would visit her, "after some time has passed when everything is settled, rid your self of him."

"How?" she asked softly.

"I think you know how?" said Tom with a cold smile on his face. "You've thought of it, have you not?" Her face was flushed with horror. "Yes an old Albanian curse that scorned men and women put over their objects of desire so that no one can claim them. It would never happen by your hands and you would be spared the guilt but you need never belong to any man for very long. Only it's rare for the object of desire herself to choose this path but of course none would suspect you, especially in this country. Think of all the money you'll learn as a career widow crying over all the men you see buried."

The door appeared again. Tom opened it for her and she rose and looked at him in complete impotence and humiliation. He had felt more pleasure breaking her then he did from her body. _That's because I have power with my command of her mind but she had command over my body_.

Tom looked at her and then smiled, the same way he had earlier, the young awkward handsome man. The change was so sudden that Katya backed away in shock, as if Tom had two faces.

"I will give you a choice, good woman," he said mockingly. "I can clear your mind of your entire time with me. I can erase it completely, only me of course. You'll go along and do what you planned on doing. Your feeble way of freedom, cursing yourself till your death. But you'll never know the truth that someone penetrated you, deeper than anyone else," she fell again in tears. "That will be my little secret and personal pleasure. It makes no difference to me, either way I know you won't tell anyone of what we shared tonight."

Ekaterina wailed and sniffed on the floor, her defeat complete, "Do it, then!"

"Really, are you sure?" he hissed softly. "You can get rid of them you know. Run away from your father and start anew. But you love daddy." He smirked triumphantly, "Yes that great power of yours which allows your father to tell you to do as he wishes and when you bring enough gold, you are to sire little grandchildren for him. Oh…but you like gold. Yes you like the best of everything."

"Do it now!" she yelled at him, pleading at his feet.

Tom walked Katya to the gates of Hogwarts; she just managed to catch the fellow Slug Club guests who were chatting with the teachers and Headmasters on their way out.

She smiled at Tom, "You are such a charmer, Tom, and you know so much about Hogwarts." Upon seeing Tom's disarming smile, she added, "When will you show me the Chamber of Secrets that you closed? Everyone in Slytherin was talking all about it."

"Really", Zabini jumped as Headmaster Dippet who had been talking with an old grey haired warlock turned to the two upon hearing the phrase, "not boasting about your laurels are you Tom? I thought you were not supposed to be discussing the details with your friends."

"No sir," he said firmly. "I haven't been talking to them and they haven't said anything to me. But I will have a word with them not to spread tall tales and rumours."

"Oh, you lack all sense of humour, Tommy," said Zabini, squeezing his cheek.

Tom smiled sheepishly, "No one has called me Tommy since little Amy Benson asked me if I wanted some birthday cake. Will I see you again Ekaterina?"

She stared at him regally and then smiled, "I think you can call me Katya, Tom!" She leant in to kiss his cheek, "And maybe I will send you a wedding invitation. It's in March." Of course she would not be sending any wedding invitation of any sort to him.

She walked out of the gates hand in hand with some of the girls she had attended the party with. Tom smiled back to her as well. He noticed that some of his fellow Slugs, as the Club inevitably described its members, were looking at him with a knowing smile as if they suspected or hoped that Tom had a lusty encounter with a highly desirable exotic woman.

As soon as they were back in their common room they all asked him directly what had happened between them.

"I took her to see some old portraits who were friends with her when she was here," he said weakly. He had to keep repeating it over and over again. "You know the same old ex-student stuff. That's all they remember when they leave the school – the ghosts, the portraits even the poltergeist."

Rodolophus Lestrange, a big bearded man with deep black eyes walked towards Tom and placed a hand over his shoulders, "Come on, Tom don't be modest. She couldn't keep her eyes off of you the entire time she was in that room. Odd girl, wouldn't give _me_ the time of day."

"Believe it or not, Rodolphus, nothing happened," he said calmly but with an air of finality that Tom's friends had learned to divine very well.

The conversation turned to their experiences with the Slug Club with their dates. They unlike Tom, were perfectly willing to give details of their time with girls.

"There's only so much energy left in you," indicated Mathew Nott, inclining a tiny distance between two fingers, "after you're done with Maggie."

The other boys oohed and aahed in appreciation. Tom remained silent seated on his chair, unlike the others who were gathered on cushions in the common room floor watching them discuss their amorous exploits, real or imagined, to each other.

It had amazed him how immediately his feelings for that girl disappeared. He had planned to tell his friends about how he broke that girl but she no longer mattered to him. He realized that he had given too much of himself away to that girl, had been out of control with her – all because she had mentioned words and phrases about love to him. He pondered if he could kill her. _No quite unnecessary. No one will ever need to ask her for anything of import and her mind is absent of any remains of our time._ He had never lost control before except on the day he had killed his father, when he had taunted and broken him before his death and when Dumbledore had visited him. It perturbed him greatly when she had said that love was the greatest magic in the world. All the more when he felt only little of the bliss and pleasure his friends had described in making love to girls, especially a beautiful woman like her. It only lasted for a few moments of happiness and bliss and then he was purged and empty and all that he wanted to do was to teach her a lesson and destroy her illusions. His greatest satisfaction was when he made her bend her will to his by forcing her to choose her fantasy over her reality and she had chosen her fantastic world of false love over her reality.

"…then Slughorn makes a beeline for the table, slobbering over the pineapples," guffawed Avery. "Apparently Slughorn has a fetish for pineapples."

"What?" asked Tom suddenly.

Avery stunned by the sudden interest of Tom Riddle in their conversation stared blankly.

"What about Slughorn and pineapples?" he asked patiently.

"Well he likes them a lot…says it makes him feel light and happy…"

"Where would you get the best, tastiest pineapples?" he continued, politely.

Avery was clearly bewildered as were the other boys. Tom had been their leader for many years now but this was the strangest and most whimsical behaviour he had displayed with them.

Nott supplied, "The Three Broomsticks are great. But I know Slughorn likes pineapples ordered from that Muggle village beyond the mountains," he sneered, "I always thought that he didn't have enough wizard's pride."

"Get me seven fresh pineapples from that village by next week," said Tom commandingly. "A Hogsmeade weekend's coming up this week, you can do everything then."

Nott stared at him, his eyes wide with shock until he asked, stupidly, "Why seven?"

"Because," said Tom with an enigmatic smile, "Seven is the most powerfully magical number."


	5. The Red and the Grey

**Disclaimer : I do not own Harry Potter or any of JK Rowling's creations.**

**AUTHOR'S NOTE - Please read notes at the end of this chapter.**

**THE CEREMONY**

_The Red and the Grey_

_The crafte of the Horrcruxe numbers amongst the moste powerfull and dangerous of all ancient artes. _

_It cannote be crafted by a simple movement of one's staffe or a casual incantation. _

Tom spread out his instruments across the table. He was bent on his knees in the stone floor, his hands bent on a small tablet containing pieces of parchment and other articles. The room took the shape of his own choosing. It would usually assemble itself as the room of his orphanage but now it resembled the chamber of Salazar Slytherin deep within the bowels of the school. No other decoration befitted the ritual to be enacted herein.

Spread on the tablet were instruments that he had selected and sculpted with care and attention. A knife, small, thin and sharp, encrusted on it's hilt with a snake protruding out of a skeletal visage. Tom had crafted it himself, it was charmed to be clean and to repel dirt and it was precious for his needs today. Next to the knife was a needle almost as long as the blade. It was made of iron and was already rusted brown. It was harsh to touch and it's nib was blunt and scarred. But a better sharpened needle would not produce the effect. The long syringe next to the needle however had a sharp tin nib that would softly and smoothly press through the skin, softer than a pillow and extract any amount of blood out of a tissue. It could also inject substances just as smoothly into the bloodstream and allow it to congeal with the corpuscles as effectively as any natural made cell. Three encased and sealed test tubes were stood on a tiny stock, each liquid coloured differently. One liquid was black as obsidian and yet glittered strangely in the pale green afterglow of the room. The middle liquid was filled with a lime green substance that glittered naturally in the room. The third test tube was filled with a silvery solid substance that none the less flowed naturally in the tube, it resembled blood in the manner in which it failed to gel with the surface of the liquid though the colour was not a human's nor any natural animal.

Tom of course knew that the blood belonged to an unicorn. An unicorn he slew with great difficult in the depths of the Forest the week before the Christmas holidays. He remembered how fast the beast was, how he had to follow it stealthily and the powerful enchantments he had to use it to slow down the beast and slaughter it; the pool of silver had glittered into his pale gray eyes with a decayed beauty. For the dead creature was at greater peace than Tom Riddle would ever be.

He knew of course that by going down the road, there would be no other way but success. If he failed he would be less than dead. Slughorn had told him that death would be preferable...

But then Death is preferable to living with the self satisfied hypocrites who refuse to seek power, tormenting themselves with delusions about good or evil.

He stared at the ring on his finger and then put a hand in his robe pocket and removed a thin diary. He placed the diary on his left side and then carefully placed the ring on top of the book. Wizards over the centuries killed themselves in creating one Horcrux. Today Tom Riddle would concieve of Horcruxes, in the plural and moreover craft them both with the same spell.

The ring would bear the first outpour and the rest would trickle into the book.

_The crafter of the Horrcruxe is evere at risk with using objects that have attachments and attractions to the commone wizarde or the inquisitive warlocke. The objecte is itself of no magical importance and has little bearing with the power of the magick and the defense provided to the object by the crafter. But the more innocuous the easier to safeguarde._

The diary, Tom knew, would eventually serve as an easy tool into infiltrating Hogwarts and re-opening the Chamber, presumably when he, the most powerful of all wizards returned to claim his kingdom. The ring was lost and forgotten and searched by no man. These objects would be ideal for completing the first trilogy of his soul.

_The crafter of the Horrcruxe must need to arrive with a soul already splintered. The effective manner to attain this sole requisite is to slay a fellow human life. It is recommended that the killing be done in the coldeste blood, so that deede provoke little remorse than the killings initiated by the stirrings of passion, the force of soldierly duty or the defence of one's life. Killing oftene consequences in the wizard the stirrings of guilt and anguishe. A Horrcuxe crafter is preternaturally damned and destroyed if the acte of creation be stirred by guiltie wand and hypocrite conscience. _

_To crafte the Horrcruxe, one must finde the splinters and make them corporeal. The magicke needed to perform this has no fixed patterne and effective yield of success. Few are the magicians that have survived this far. Among the ones who have continued further, even fewer are sane, magickal and able to performe human speeche._

_Faustus, the warlocke of venerable Durmstrang lived beyond the age of three hundrede after crafting a Horrcruxe out of a crucifix belonging to the young maidene he was betrothede to, the maidene he sacrificed for his pursuit of the Dark Arts. Faustus destroyed his own Horrcruxe on feeling deep losse and remorse for his act of creation. His apprentice Mephys Philosteles, the Greek Arithmancer, charted down the act of his master's creation. _

_Fool_ thought Tom. How silly it seemed to him to feel remorse for a murder commited nearly three hundred years in one's past, especially if the time was devoted to debauchery and violating every standard of moral respectability between the crime committed and the remorse one supposedly felt.

There will be no remorse for Lord Voldemort, who will not stop until he commands all that are opposed to him. _In the long run, _he thought, _the only thing that really matters is mastering death and commanding one's fate. Morality, remorse, love, compassion those are for fools and deluded imbeciles._

Tom raised his wand and turned the page of the parchment towards the section transcribing Mephys Philosteles' annotations. The book was written in the 18th Century by an anonymous author of British origin, although Tom supposed it was written in the period before Dexter Fortescue's tenure at Hogwarts, presumably by the groups of students who worked with the Ministry on Dark Arts research, as Florean had told him. Presumably the author(or authors) had travelled to many obscure parts of Europe to collect the documents

The most detailed and most important was the recovery of Philosteles' scrolls...the single most detailed exploration on a successful creation of a Horcrux. It was thought lost until its discovery in the late 17th Century.

_Master Faustus observed that upon murdering Miss Gretchen, he felt waves of grief and loss, that his senses lost some of their former clarity that his magick decreased in dexterity. He was led to conclude that the whole form of the single, undivided soul weakened upon acts committed against the natural order of things as experienced on an emotional level. Master chose to murder Gretchen who he loved above all people so as to intensify the force of the splinter, the cutting up of the soul. In my personal experiments in killing fellow witches and wizards I found that emotional connections between victims and killers have ill effects on one's command of magic. The lesser the connection felt, the easier to retain one's magic in complete command. Master will live for many years but with reduced magick due to his love for his murdered muse. He commanded me to obliviate him of the love he felt for Gretchen so as not to be tempted by remorse. Master need never fear death but he shall never wield the great power he once held._

Of course this was written when Philosteles was still alive, noted Tom idly. Faustus outlived him and at a great age, reclaimed the lost memories of his love for the woman he killed and eventually felt a sufficently deep pang of remorse for the Horcrux to shatter and the splintered soul to rejoin it's mother, the action resulting in the stupid wizard's death.

_Immortality wasted on a lecher and a fool_ thought Tom supercilously. _But he was great to have gone that far_. He would go further. Further than anyone.

_The soul derives strength from one's emotional experience. It is strongest when it is able to command experiences that the wizard can subjectively derive power from, strength is generally found to be derived from the positive memories of one's being. Not unlike the craft of the Patronus magic. The splinter of one's soul is achieved by the act of killing which in successful instances is committed by a strong will for dominance, for power, the triumph of one life by the destruction of another. Faustus then crafted a manner in which one extracted the splinter. The soul is the incorporeal essence of humanity and carving it out of it's physical organic shell is a most arduous task and until Faustus, no other wizard has succeeded in the extraction without retaining one's sanity and physical being. The impact on his magic was more out of connection with master's beloved than anything to do with the magic itself. _

Tom took the knife in his hand and then slowly traced it along his palm stopping before the wrist of his right hand. His wand was kept on the table.

_To render the splinter corporeal, it is necessary to willingly poison the body. This is best done by a deliberate sizable injury and the careful poisoning of one's blood. Master chose the wrist of his wand hand for his effort and it has yielded better results than prior atttempts which chose one's knees, thighs, necks, breasts, ears and eyes. _

Tom sliced his wrist in a single stroke. The pain was hot and fierce and he let out a cry as blood splashed across the tablet. A hastily muttered charm from the wand in his left hand halted the blood from dripping further. Instead it gathered in hot bubbles arounded the wound of his wrist. The pain however was fresh and intense and the flaming ignited wound sent shivers into his spine as the did the grotesque sight of the scarlet bubbles of blood around his wrist.

He tapped the rusted iron nail with his wand and it burnt red hot at once. _Yet more pain_ he thought heatedly, the pain from his flaming wrist making him intense and sweaty. _But it will be worth it._

Tom kept silent through the placement of the hot iron tip of the nail on his wound, through the careful magical injection of the rusted iron dust extracted from the metal with his wand and into the wounded wrist and the moulding of the melted rust into a salve that cauteurized around his hand. When this was finished, he let out a long shriek of agony and pain that sounded through the room and would sound across Scotland had he not requested silence from the Room of Requirement.

_Now for the dragon blood._ The test-tube with the black liquid slowly began draining it's contents, the same contents then began filling the syringe, leaving a small amount of black liquid in the tube. Tom Riddle knew that the 5th use of Dragon Blood allowed the imbibing of external matter into the human body. This was generally used in complex healing surgeries at St. Mungo's but it suited Tom Riddle fine. With a wave of his wand, the syringe rose towards his forearm and injected the black blood of an Ukrainian Ironbelly into his bloodstream. The pain in his body gradually lessened and Tom muttered some healing charms and the wounds on his hand immediately disappeared looking as unviolated as ever to the untrained eye.

Inside his body, all kinds of chemical reactions were taking place due to the delirious interactions between his blood and the newly enforced chemical agents. But Tom felt little of this on the outside. He had to proceed. The next thing was to use the dragon blood left to inject the snake venom into his body. The test-tubes unsealed themselves and Tom conjured a ladle and a candle. He mixed the black blood with the snake venom and carefully heated the mixture with the candle. It had to be the right heat, not enough to place a cauldron above. He injected the mixture into his hand, choosing the same spot through which he injected the blood the first time. The unicorn blood was the only thing left and that would be needed later.

Tom rose to his feet and stood erect. He twirled his wand around his body carefully. His eyes glazed slightly as he continued his wand movements. The moment of reckoning was at hand.

His mind's eye went over the incantation. The enchantments around the Horcrux had no specific incantation, but required a force of magic and will. The basic incantation used by Faustus could be done in the language of the crafter's choice. Faustus used German, Tom would use Parseltongue.

In hissing tones, he chanted loudly - _"I wield my mind, my power and command my soul to reveal it's droplets, unchain them from itself and bathe in my own blood._

No sooner that he said this, an intense cold pain shot through his body and Tom fell to the floor. He began shaking and writhing on the floor, his body reacting to any tactile sensation with the cry of a wounded and pricked squirrel. Tom shrieked and howled into the empty room as his body went white as bone and all colour from his skin drained itself out, dying in the spreading whiteness of his skin.

The pain stopped suddenly and Tom jumped to his feet at once and began running around the room in a furious circle and a strong pace. His shirt was wet with his sweat and his hair was shaggy with the pain that he had put himself through. His wand in his hand he returned himself to the tablet and turned towards the text. It took all the strength in the world to force his mind to continue with the task he had chosen for himself.

As much to calm and steady himself, he read over the next portions of Philosteles' notes...

_The sensation of the soul swimming in the blood stream saps the body of it's heat, the skin of it's colour and dampens the senses. Existence in this state eventually leads to the destruction of these soul particles and leaves the body in the same permanent state of the first effect until it dies. The lack of consistent body heat and the dampening of the senses shortens the lifespan. The way forward is to extract these objects out of the body. Once extracted, they must needs be hexed at once so as to exist physically before they are again encased into the Horcrux._

_The spell involved in this act is complex and most unbalanced. A badly timed spell or an imperfect incantation will lead to consequences most disastrous. The spell diagram below corresponds closely to Master Faustus' directions and actions. _

_The incantation used by master is Anima Metempsych Corporare._

Tom stared at the complex spell diagram on the book and began twirling his wand in the right arrangement as he whispered authoratively, "_Anima Metempsych Corporare"_

His wand completed the movement pointing directly at his throat. _Time to go one step further_, _if I don't choke to death first_. His body lit up in pain and his stomach contracted painfully as if he was about to regurgitate bile but what would come out of his body moved slowly and painfully out of his throat and piled towards his mouth, rather than the slushy bubbling extraction of vomit out of his body. Tom's jaw was locked open, his eyes wide and staring. Yet if he had seen a mirror he would know how far he had gone for his gray eyes were tinted with red from the pain of the magic performed. He felt a bubble like substance at the apex of his oesophagus and slowly it bubbled out of his mouth. Blood began to drool out of his tongue, slowly and then rapidly as he cupped his hand around his lips to collect the splintered soul.

It was a moving red substance. A brighter shade of red than the red blood dripping from his mouth. It was loosely spherical, except it's edges tended to shift and swivel tiny tendrils on the tips of Tom's fingers. Tom thought oddly of the Snitch caught by Seekers on a Quidditch pitch. This soul fragment was of nearly the same size. He pointed his wand again towards it and muttered the incantation to make it into the proper physical state.

_"Ars Cordus Artis"_

The soul particles became more spherical, it's tendrils stopped waving and it hardened into a ball with a flesh like reddish black surface. When Tom pressed his hand around the sphere, he felt a soft drumming sound within it, the substance had it's own vital signs, it's own tiny heart beat though Tom knew that the heart recorded was the one in his body. After clearing the bloodiness of his body, he pointed his wand towards the substance and searched out the substance for it's properties. It contained the iron, the venom and the dragon blood as he intended it to. He searched deeper to reverse the splinter to it's point of origin. His wand traced the circumference. The splinter was of the most recent make. The murder of his false Muggle parents. He felt the ugly flesh in his arm and resolved and kneaded it gently. His left hand picked the ring on top of the book and he inserted it on his index finger and he gently placed the ball of the soul particles into the same hand. It would now be necessary to insert the splinter into the ring, the act would benefit both objects. The soul ball would be permanently grafted rather than persist in it's temporary state and the ring would be as indestructible as any object could ever hope to be.

Philosteles' instructions continued, "_The Horcrux is crafted by the most delicate of metallurgical spells. It needs to incorporate a fragment of the life essence into an object. Animals are most impractical for they think, eat, feed and regulate and excrete. A non-living object, especially a small object is better suited. The size of the object has no bearing on it's soul containing powers. There is no such thing as an object too small to contain a soul. The Dark Lord Koschei contained his soul in a needle. A big object is harder to protect and even harder to hide. To place the soul into the object of choice, there is the incantation but more than that is a force of will and a show of dominion and also the memory and circumstance of the act of murder which led to the existence of the splinter."_

Tom placed his wand on his temple and concentrated on the memory of the day when he killed his despicable Muggle relatives. A thin silver thread attached itself to his wand and he placed it into the small particle of soul on the palm of his left hand. At once the ball glowed bright red like a flaming ember.

_No wizard who has come this far can turn back._

Tom laughed coldly. Why would he even consider turning back?

_The encasement of a soul within a Horcrux is permanent on the condition of remorselessness on the part of the crafter. Desire and actions for remorse have in the past allowed for the sentinel soul to rejoin it's fount of origin, thereby stripping the Horcrux of it's purpose and creating great life threatening pain on the body and mind of the individual. It is also permanent on the condition that it is able to protect itself. An object grafted with soul particles is protected by regenerative abilities that protect itself from almost all forms of magical attacks and every single non-magical form of penetration yet this is true only on the condition that the object is not attacked so powerfully that it's regenerative abilities are compromised and destroyed and it cannot heal itself in time. In this case, a Horcrux can be successfully destroyed and the soul particles encased within be lost for good leaving the mother soul permanently mutilated. It is recommended that the Horcrux be sealed and protected by sufficiently powerful magic and be protected from enemies and thieves. _

_The incantation for grafting a soul particle on to a Horcrux is "Anima Horcruxum Artis". The spell diagram is as follows. It is extremely important that one holds the soul particles in the palm of one's non-wand hand and the intended Horcrux within it's immediate reach. The smaller the distance, the lesser the chance for compromise. Once crafted, the mother soul exists in two spaces. One organic shell from which it originates, the other a non-organic tether placed somewhere else. A Horcrux can keep as far a distance as concievable from the crafter. Crafting a Horcrux, by necessity, makes the soul unstable. Lack of sleep, loss of taste of favourite foods and inability to dream are some of the milder symptoms. More extreme forms have included insanity, irreparable physical deformities and unstable command of one's magic. It is not fully known to what extreme end this unstability can take. This magic is therefore not for the faint hearted, the easily bewildered and those who refuse to take sacrifices. _

Tom smirked wildly. He was fearless of anyone and anything but he had more courage and power than this book would allow.

"_Anima Horcruxum Artis"_ The tiny red ball burnt bright again and it's spherical surface coarsened and became fluidlike yet again, it pooled across his left palm and moved towards the ring on the index finger. The tendrils encased the ring in a thick red solvent and Tom looked ominous and dangerous with the particles of his own soul twisting around his index finger. The sense of power he derived from dangling a portion of his own soul as if it was a beady cobweb was making him delirious with happiness. The gold band of the ring could not be seen amidst the horrid scarlet tendrils in which the human soul coloured itself. Redder than blood, brighter than the white snow outside the castle, it was the single most beautiful thing Tom Riddle would ever see. Then Tom saw the tendrils shorten and recede and twist around the ring and finally he saw his ring on his finger looking as it did when he first saw it on his Uncle Morfin's hand, the mark of his Peverell forbears - A triangle containing a circle divided by a diameter - staring ominously into his eye. Tom then removed the ring and held it in the palm of his hand at the exact same spot, his soul had been cupped. The soul had felt like a cool fluid, yet it touched his hand as if it was a part of the air. The ring felt as light as ever but as Tom ran his fingers along the band, he felt a tiny vibration from within. The beating of his own heart, the ring was serving sentinel to his own life.

Tom placed the ring on the tablet and savouring only a moment for his astounding success at crafting a Horcrux at the age of 16, proceeded to topping this achievement. He pulled the diary into which he had put disorganized entries of notes for the Horcrux, drawings of possible dark symbols for future use, doodles and sketches on the image of Slytherin's locket he had seen in Morfin's mind, and lately he had used a Parseltongue script to write out instructions on the opening and use of Salazar Slytherin's chamber.

It had occured to Tom that he would graduate from Hogwarts the next year. It pained him that he would be parted from this most ancient and powerful of all wizard dwellings but there was so much still to be learnt from it. Tom wanted to return as a teacher and planned to apply to Dippet after his NEWTs but he knew that he would be too young to accept. So he planned to send in a portion of himself, hidden in the mind of an unsuspecting student to take over the school in later years. To do so, he would experiment even further than anyone ever dreamed to do so with the Horcrux. Tom would extract a portion of his soul by attaching it to his memory of his sixteen year self and then preserve it into a diary. The diary which contained the evidence of the Chamber of Secrets and which was filled with the paper that contained his future vision for the wizard world. And of course to do this he would create a second Horcrux. The first of it's kind in the history of the world. It was also the greatest risk he would ever take.

Tom first filled the syringe with the Unicorn blood from the test tube. And injected a sliver of it into the same place where he had placed the dragon blood and the snake venom. The silver substance made Tom feel ticklish as it trickled into his bloodstream. Unicorn blood was extremely powerful yet volatile substance but injecting it into his bloodstream would keep him alive in case his current experiment backfired. The volatility of the blood would be curbed once the second Horcrux was made.

It made the best sense to do it at once. He placed the wand to his temple and extracted slowly the memory and image of the sole murder committed by the Basilisk and then slowly he began muttering under his breath as he added memories pertaining to his life in the Muggle orphanage, the resentment he felt towards Dumbledore, his pride in his popularity in school, his search for his ancestry and the discovery of the Basilisk in the Chamber and the reasons why he opened and closed it, a single tendril flowed out of his temple and several smaller tendriles curled around it, in a set of tight intertwined patters as if it was a powerful rope of silver and blue.

Then Tom muttered with a sense of purpose and command as well as a reckless zest, "_Anima Corporare Memento Mens"_ The same powerful cold pain that filled him earlier returned in full command. The incantation he had just used was one of his own invention, patterned and designed after months of work and research in the Room for Requirement. He watched from the corner of his eye as a stream of bright red airy tendrils swivelled around the tendril of his sixteen year old's memory blackening the silver and blue into colours of bright red and dark black. Tom breathed out faintly, "_Ars Cordus Artis"_ and the rope of red and black hardened into a fleshlike surface as it floated in the air.

A searing numbness swam across his body. Tom did not feel his knees stumbling on the floor, nor did he feel his wand in his arm. The second soul particle, grafted at it's moment of extraction into his memory had sapped him of tactile feeling. He could feel neither his tongue, nor his lips, nor the sweat pouring out of his white shirt, making it transparent and wet. He could no longer smell, yet his eyes peered down the bridge of his nose, remaining unaffected as did his ears which listened to the noisy silence around the room with ominous feeling. It was very hard for Tom to force his left hand, which had held a portion of his own soul mere minutes ago, yet was now palmed with sticky sweat. By a sense of will and the direction of his eye, he forced it towards the syringe containing the Unicorn blood and forced his long fingers to position it properly against his right hand which still held his wand. He watched with panic and dread as the silver blood injected itself again into his body, this time a greater dose entered within.

The shock of the relief sent him crumbling to the floor as his muscles once again gasped the tactility it had been denied when it was drowned with the corporeal soul essences. Tom thrashed and writhed around the floor for a whole minute before gathering himself again. The discomfiture and the pain involved in the second extraction slowly subsided yet the new relief was just as painful. He looked at his skin and noticed that portions of colour again entered within, that his nose detected the intense body odour around his body. He placed his hands on his hair and found it was wet and haggard. One would not see handsome Tommy Riddle in this stage but a wild creature of will and power, his body was tense and tight and his wand was emitting a trail of sparks on the floor. His gray eyes peered towards the red and black floating rope of tendrills. He walked towards it and sat once again on the floor. He placed the diary underneath the floating tendril.

he then waved his wand in the same former movement as before and muttered in a high cold voice, "_Anima Horcruxum Artis"_. The red and black rained into the tiny pages. The pages which had been written in black ink accepted the new matter and transformed it into the same shade of black as itself. The tendrils retained a reddish tinge as it glued around the book and slowly seeped itself into the blank parchment in the colour of black. Tom held the diary and watched anxiously as the pages in the diary, the myriad diagrams, the Parseltongue script and the many symbols and scribblings disappeared into the parchment upon impact with the memory soul particle mixture. The diary looked like any common book save that it looked older and weathered by use which was odd since all it's pages was blank. Tom conjured a quill and an inkpot. _One small test._

He dipped the quill in the ink and turned the pages slowly and then dropped a blot of ink into the parchment and watched it filter into the nothingness of the parchment. He then dipped his quill into the pot and began writing "_I am Lord Voldemort"_. He watched with satisfaction as independent of any will of his wand, the letters began re-arranging itself in the reverse order of when he first crafted the anagram at the age of 12. _Tom Marvolo Riddle_ appeared on the blank pages and slowly it shortened it's initials into _T. M. Riddle._

Then a new script appeared on the diary, independent of it's own accord,_ We have succeeded, this far and no one is the wiser of how far we have travelled in a mere hour we have kept ourselves in this chamber. I, T. M. Riddle shall reside in this diary until I find a willing vessel whose mind I might bend into our plan. I shall grow no older and I shall be a monument and a record to our precocious days in Hogwarts, plotting victory and triumph, rewriting history before we have come of age. I shall recieve word one day of my older self's triumph as the greatest sorceror of the world. The future that we have made for ourselves which I must play only a distant, hidden part is the one that you will tread and fulfill. And soon you will return to Hogwarts, make it bow before your knees, reclaim it in the name of Salazar Slytherin, purge out the Mudbloods, the Half-Breeds, the Muggle lovers, the House Elves, the Centaurs, the Merpeople. You will rid away of all traces of unworthy Gryffindor, Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff and install Great Slytherin above them all. The Chamber will burrow to the surface and the Basilisk roam in the Great Lake, feasting on the Squid. All this lies before us._

Tom had to keep himself on Blood Replenishing Potion and many other handmade mixtures upto the middle of the month of January in order to heal his body thoroughly off the craft of two Horcruxes. He had convinced Slughorn and his fellow peers that he was feeling ill and they had let them be. To the outside world, there was no hint that Tom Riddle walked amongst themselves not as a person but merely a corporeal organic container of the main part of his soul while two of it's offshoots resided in a diary and a ring he had hidden deep inside Hogwarts. It was a room inside the Room for Requirement. A Room containing centuries of articles and artefacts, revealing itself to no one other than someone who wished to hide something inside and appearing to no one else who did not have anything to hide into. It was a room only a student like him could ever enter. No annointed Muggle-lover like Dumbledore would find it. One had to have the curiosity and the thirst for adventure to find it. And he was certain that no other student before him had ever come as far as he did and he had set the bar so high that no one would follow him that far. Yet he did not plan to keep them there permanently. The Diary would need to be smuggled from outside inside. Preferably a good time after he finished Hogwarts and the Ring would be best protected in Little Hangleton. Tom did not feel that Horcruxes were safe if they were hidden in pairs. Each had to be kept seperately and far from its brother splinters. That made it more challenging for any hypothetical hunter for his Horcruxes.

He turned 17 at the turn of the new year and was legally an adult wizard for the last months of his sixth year. His apparition tests were cakewalk and after a few tries in Hogsmeade he was able to disapparate without making a noise. Being of age meant that he was allowed to use magic outside school, it meant that he was of age to work in the wizard world and it also meant that he could live where he liked. But Tom would go to the Orphanage for one final time this summer and then not return. He would be Tom Riddle, poor Oprhan boy for as long as he studied here.

Tom finished his sixth year with high marks in all his tests and essays and began his seventh year as Head Boy, for which he was the almost unanimous choice. Tom knew very well who the lone voice of dissent was but Dumbledore was pre-occupied with almost daily castle visits by Aurors from Europe and friends from the Wizengamot and the Ministry. The escalation of the Second World War in it's final years and Grindelwald's refusal to back down had had it's effect on the auburn haired warlock. And Tom knew that Dumbledore would soon go to Central and Eastern Europe and track Grindelwald. It happened in the second part of the seventh year, Dumbledore's classes were taken over by his friend and assistant Elphias Doge who steadied the students towards their NEWTs. Dumbledore who was deeply admired and respected by his Gryffindors and by many students in other houses was a deeply missed presence within the castle. Tom of course played his role as a sombre responsible Head Boy who younger students looked up to in the wake of their shepherd's absence, yet his cheerful mood at the idea of a Dumbledore-less castle was caught on by his friends in Slytherin. He took advantage to dwelve even further into his researches and his exploration of the castle. He even considered re-opening the Chamber but felt it would risk exposure and discovery.

He had considered the idea of a seven part soul. The number 7 was the most powerful of magical numbers. It was the most ideal combination for ensuring that his magical power remain unchanged and everlasting and permanent. He would be truly immortal and even if a soul particle was destroyed or withered away by accident or mistake or even latter-day remorse, he still had enough to tether his life to the earth. It would be impossible for anyone to consider how many he made, what he made them with and where he had hidden them. It would take one years and years to find just one. The other five was practically a lost cause. No one would guess. _Even then they would have to kill me and that was inconcievable. _

He was in no hurry to make more Horcruxes. He had used all the available soul splinters created from his body count and he was not yet comfortable to brazenly kill in public and even if he chose victims for his experiment, it would attract attention from Dumbledore who knew that Tom opened the Chamber and who saw through the sham of Morfin's capture and who suspected Tom but who had no evidence. One more surreptitious murder and Dumbledore would force his attention to him, and Tom did not want that especially now that he had precious valuables to hide. He would not kill again, at least in this country until he was ready to go underground and chart out on his own. He would do what Grindelwald promised to do, yet deliver on this promise. He would build an army of wizards, werewolves, giants, hags, goblins and dementors but he would bring the threat home to Wizarding England, a land that prided itself on merry hypocrisy and pompous self-absorbed social climbing. But he would not do so at once. It would be ceremonious and ritualized. Tom having now crafted his Horcruxes, knew that he would live forever and had all the time in the world.

If he desired, he could craft the other four Horcruxes at once. He could use potion bottles, a cauldron or textbooks but Tom had no interest in something so dreadfully common. It would need a history or a significance to it. And Tom decided on the four objects of choice one spring morning in the last month of his seventh year at Hogwarts.

The House Ghost of Gryffindor had told him years earlier that of the four house ghosts, he was the youngest and the oldest was the Grey Lady of Ravenclaw House. She was the oldest not on account of the age of her time of death, a slender 24 years of age at the time of her death, younger than the four in fact, but because she was the first among them to die. When Tom had asked the Gryffindor Ghost who she was, he had told Tom that she was the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, Helena. Tom had befriended the ghost since his fifth year, a rare feat because she talked to no one else. From the way she composed herself and the silences with which she had talked to him about her mother and her older friends, he knew that she had a secret to tell. Tom suspected it but he needed to hear it from her to make sure. She of course did not know that Tom was using her like he did every one he met and talked to. To her, Tom was a curious handsome boy who was obsessed with her personal first hand account of the time of the Founders.

Tom chose to ask her about Slytherin that day.

"I remember Salazar when I was young," she said softly. "He was very humble. Always insited on being called Salazar. Even by his students. From what I gathered, the first students of Hogwarts were adults who apprenticed under each founder. They were personally chosen by them as embodiments of the qualities they sought in their students and they in turn helped them to teach the younger students who got selected by Godric's sorting hat." She shook her head. "The house rivalry we have nowadays would have kept them chuckling for days on end. They didn't expect people to take ideas such as "bravest of heart" or "cunning and sly" so _literally_. Salazar often joked that his least favourite Hogwarts students were the Slytherins and he chose them because he believed they needed his personal attention."

"How did he get along with your mother?" asked Tom earnestly.

"They got along," she said pensively. "I think Salazar was attracted to Rowena. But he was married and so was she so nothing came of that. But he was a gentleman with her. And she was very sad when he had to leave Hogwarts."

"Did you remember that?" asked Tom curiously.

"No," she shook her head. "There was a lot of conflict inside Hogwarts around the time Salazar left. His students attacked several of their fellow students and one of them hurt Gryffindor's brother. He didn't like the Muggleborn and Half-Blood students, though he made a great show of making exceptions, maybe he was sincere I don't know. Mother did not think that Salazar asked them to attack or commanded them to do so but she also felt that Gryffindor was right to call Slytherin a coward for not doing enough to stop them and for hoping to profit from their attempts to purge Hogwarts."

Tom went pale at this accusation of his great forbear, "Do you think Salazar was a coward?" He didn't hide the fury he felt towards Rowena Ravenclaw's criticism towards Slytherin.

"I don't know," she said coolly, "and I don't care. When I was twenty I wanted to be done with Hogwarts and this land. Mother and Father kept me locked in this land and everybody expected me to be - j-just as great as her, they all said I looked like her and was beautiful." She smiled, "But I was plain and mediocre. All the other Ravenclaws were better than me. Mother tried to tell me that she loved me no matter what but she never had time for me, always with her favourites and she was never the same when Father died. She was quite alone..."

Tom stated at the Grey Lady's pearly white eyes which glistened with pearly misty tears. He saw clear as day the expression of guilt on her face and he moved towards her steadily. Legilimency was useless against ghosts but Tom knew enough about human behaviour to know how vulnerable people were when they lived with guilt and for a ghost their entire existence was spent in penitential guilt for their wasted earthly lives.

"Did you remember a locket that Slytherin wore?" he asked carefully.

"Locket?" asked Helena frowning. "Why yes? He wore it often, it was a gift from his wife. It was silver and it had a snake...but how do you know about it?"

"I'll let you in on a secret," he whispered with a smile. He looked around the deserted Transfiguration department with a deliberate theatricality that intrigued his departed audience. "You see I'm half blood. My father was a Muggle but my Mum was a witch. I was looking up her family. They're both dead." he added on seeing her concerned expression. "I found out that they were related to an old pureblood family that lost all the money and were living outside society. She left home, Mum did. But she didn't have money," he added quickly, his eyes glinted with a red tinge as he slowly seduced the Grey Lady to his will, "so she took with her...she _stole_ one thing from her father's house."

"Your mother ran away from home stealing something from her parents," she said strangely, her beautiful robes fluttering uncomfortably.

"Yes," he said shrugging his shoulders. "But don't blame her, she was poor and she was alone and Mum and Dad didn't treat her right and she wanted to be herself and why not take something that belonged to her anyway?" The Grey Lady watched the young man with rapt attention drinking his every word. "It was her _birthright_. It was Slytherin's Locket."

"What?" she said suddenly. "Are you saying you're related to Slytherin?"

Tom shrugged his shoulders, "He lived so long ago that everybody walking the earth today is probably related to him. And I don't know if it's real. That's why I asked...I didn't know who else could take me seriously. You go to anyone today and say you have something of Merlin's or Ravenclaw's they'd probably laugh at you."

"Yes, laugh at you," she repeated steadily, biting her lip.

Tom added carefully, "I'm not sure if it's a real locket but my grandfather believed it was real. And Mum didn't have it with her when she died in the orphanage just after giving birth to me. Don't bother," he added quickly, waving away her sympathetic smile towards the poor orphan boy, "I never knew her and I won't ever know if it's real or not or if it exists anymore." The gracious expression at Tom's refusal of sympathy of course meant that she had greater sympathy for him now. "For all I know she was robbed of it. If she succeeded to sell it, she'd have enough to take care of us. How many other chances are there of owning Founders' objects? It would make a fortune."

The Grey Lady stared at him with a pensive and anxious glance and then as if she was finally making her decision she answered, "Oh I think there might be a better chance than you think." At Tom's frowning expression of curiosity, she continued, "The Founders possessed objects which were famous in their day and objects which had a mystique and intrigue around them. Over the years it spread through their students and teachers. Gryffindor was the simplest of the four, he dressed like he never left a tavern or took a bath," she added haughtily. "Mother always urged Godric to be better groomed but he liked his rough hardy ways and enjoyed fishing in the Great Lake with his students. He was a great wizard but a complete commoner so he didn't have much in the way of treasure. Take a look at that ugly Sorting Hat, it was ugly even when it was new whatever it sings. But his one luxury was his sword."

"A sword?" asked Tom interestedly.

"Yes," she nodded towards him. "Made out of Goblin silver. He loved swordplay and he wanted the strongest sword in his possession. He paid a Gobin to make one for him and he studded it with rubies and jewels and no Troll or Giant or Dragon could defeat Godric when he wielded his wand in one hand and that sword in the other. Salazar had no chance against him. When he died, the sword disappeared and hasn't been seen since, though there are rumours and stories. He didn't have children so it didn't pass down the line. Helga Hufflepuff had a small Golden cup that is actually widely seen and probably still in the hands of whoever has the gold and the bloodline for it. Salazar was the wealthiest of the Four and he had a lot of Gold, but the Locket which you mention is maybe all that he has left. He wore it all the time in those days."

"What about Ravenclaw?" asked Tom.

"She had a diadem," she said gravely. "It had the power to grant it's wearer wisdom. She made it herself."

"Is it the same one on her statue in the Common Room," asked Tom. "Er...one of my Ravenclaw friends showed it to me?" he added on seeing her questioning stare.

"Yes," she said seriously, "that statue was made by her students as a monument to her when she died. They made it as they remembered her. Young, intelligent and beautiful...oh mother..." Helena cried her pearly misty tears and then she stared at Tom and said, "I know very well how your mother felt when she ran away from home. You see - the last four years of my life was spent in hiding from my mother. I wanted to be away from her and her shadow. I wanted to be better than her," she cried bitterly. "So I walked up to her room and while she was sleeping I stole her diadem and left Hogwarts. Many still search for it but nobody knows where it is except me."

"Are you sure it's still where you kept it?" asked Tom carefully. "You died...a thousand years ago. Things change in that time."

"Mother would have liked you," cried Helena with a bitter laugh. She added in a sing-song voice, "_'Wit beyond measure is man's greatest treasure'_, that was her motto. The wisdom powers of the diadem actually allowed you to be witty and gave you a command of language. Of course command of language allows you to command thought and then command magic. It's one of Mother's favourite riddles. No pun intended." She added courteously. "It didn't help me. She sent someone to find me and he killed me when he saw me. I only found out when I became a ghost...you see mother didn't want me to be found because she wanted her diadem back, she wanted to see me before she died. I visited her as a ghost and she cried herself to death on seeing me like that. I wished I died all over again...but I was already dead." She gasped painfully. "I've wanted to say that for so long but who would understand? Nobody except you." Tom nodded sympathetically.

"I don't know if it's still there but I think if anyone can find it, you should. Unless somebody found it already. I was living in Albania in the forest there. I found an old yew tree. Yew trees last for centuries, you know. I kept it in a tree there safely. You see the diadem was useless to someone who lived alone in the woods. You needed to converse with people, to share with them your gift for the powers to be really useful. So I kept it there."

"Albania," said Tom wonderingly. "It might be years before I have the money to go there. And it might not even be there."

"Well if you find out that it's not there, can you find a way to tell me that it's gone," she asked hopefully. "If you find it, then you have earned it. Mother had no other child and no one can pretend to be Ravenclaw's heir." She began to glide away and then she turned back, "Oh and Tom good luck in finding Salazar's locket."

Tom knew that it was imperative that he gather those four objects - Gryffindor's Sword, Hufflepuff's Cup, Ravenclaw's Diadem and his birth right, Slytherin's Locket. How great it would be to possess and unite the Four objects of the Four Founders and the grandeur of each object encasing a part of his soul appealed to his imagination. He would find each one and make it a Horcrux.

With this in mind, Tom planned his career options upon leaving Hogwarts. Slughorn, who had forgotten for both their sakes the troubling conversation they had in Tom's sixth year, had relished himself in offering Tom career opportunities at the Ministry or Gringotts(which intrigued him although he disliked the possibility of working under Goblin scrutiny, far less susceptible to his charm and charisma than wizard intelligence) or even at the Daily Prophet("Journalism is always a good career to build a platform into any field of pursuit, be it academic or political") or at St. Mungo's. Tom however wanted to know more about witches and wizards lived, the values they carried into their daily lives and the possessions that they treasured. He also wanted to find out for himself if the lost Founders artefacts were still in the country. For that reason he considered working at Borgin and Burkes, the richest and best shop in Knocturn Alley, more attractive and meaningful in terms of life experiences than working in public institutions. He had been in touch with Borgin and while he felt the pay wasn't to his satisfaction, it was a definite vacancy that Borgin would keep aside for Tom Riddle. Of course, this was only his second choice.

His preference was to work at Hogwarts, as a teacher. Old Galatea Merrythought was considering retirement though Dumbledore and the Herbology Professor Beery convinced her to continue. Tom proposed to Dippet his desire to continue at Hogwarts as a teacher and he promised him that he would consider it. Tom did not think he had a real chance to get the job. It was rare for someone so young to be offered a position in the staff. One had to be in their 20s at the very least. It pained him to leave the castle, it was his kingdom and as far as he was concerned he owned it having gone deeper into it's history and it's mysteries than anyone else. He thought about how much he had still not learnt and discovered about the school and it's magic. Of course, being a teacher was an excellent platform for gathering followers; much like Slughorn in his harmless manner did so himself. But then it would draw attention to build platform at a school like Grindelwald did at Durmstrang. Especially with the public hoopla over Dumbledore's defeat of the fool.

It happened in the week after his NEWTs. The Daily Prophet devoted an entire issue to it and the Hogwarts' staff brought in a large Wireless to bleat out the news for all to hear. Grindelwald's forces which had been thinning out, little by little by the special group led by Dumbledore, put in a deadly final stand in a castle at Austria where Dumbledore defeated him in a ferocious duel that lasted four hours. Dumbledore was injured by the ordeal but he was healing fast and the conquering hero would be coming to Hogwarts in time for his graduation ceremony.

There were a few journalists among the crowd that gathered around the duel and they had taken pictures. The Prophet managed to get rights for these and splattered the pages with large poster size tableaus of two wizards engaged in fierce combat. Some of the pictures were in colour and Tom looked at the moving image of an auburn haired wizard robed in deep red dueling against a blonde wizard robed in grey. The agility with which Dumbledore moved, the force and movement of his wand and that of Grindelwald's had impressed Tom. After a certain point these two weren't even figures so much so as red and grey blurs. The force of their spells and the light from them often created blinding flashes in the Prophet pages that occassionally left some of the many students who read it with glazed looks, even if they were merely looking up advertisements below the images. Dumbledore would return to the castle at night, quietly and silently not wishing to parade into the Great Hall. Dippet however insisted on a guard of honour for someone who had brought prestige to Hogwarts and Tom as Head Boy was part of this guard alongside Head Girl Beatrice Bennett, the Quidditch Captains and the seventh year prefects. Dumbledore's closest friend amongst the staff - Herbert Beery, Horace Slughorn, Galatea Merrythought, Silvanus Kettleburn - waited in a small chamber by the Entrance Hall alongside Dippet and the selected students for Dumbledore's arrival to the castle.

"He's really taking long isn't he?!" asked Slughorn heavily. "I mean here we are all waiting to invite the man who defeated the most powerful of all Dark Wizards back to the castle, and Albus decides to be late for his own homecoming."

"Shut up, Horace," rasped Professor Merrythought, clad in bronze and blue robes, as befitted the Head of Ravenclaw House. "First of all, this is a surprise, second of all, after what he's been through do you really think Albus would like all the attention around him."

"Why wouldn't he like the attention?" cried Slughorn, shocked to his bone. "If it had been me, I'd have come back on the finest luxury carriage festooned by the most well bred Abraxans in France. There would be purple plumage on the head of every horse and gold trimmings..."

"Dumbledore told me," interrupted Merrythought haughtily, "that he'd be coming here on a Thestral!" She inhaled a draft of tobacco from her pipe as she gazed at the curious glances gathered around her with satisfaction. "Albus sent me and Herbie here a message in the morning." She added, removing a single golden feather from her robe.

"Typical Albus!" exclaimed Slughorn theatrically, "He won't return my owls but he sends you two a secret message from his phoenix!"

"He said that he brought you an old bottle of champagne from the finest basement in Bordeaux," retorted Merrythought dryly.

"What a sweet, considerate man," sighed Slughorn pompously. "Always thinking about others in need." There was a hearty laugh from the rest of the teachers and after an awkward sideways glance, a couple of the students joined in.

Tom's thoughts however were drawn to Slughorn's casual mention of Dumbledore's phoenix. "I didn't know that Professor Dumbledore had a phoenix?"

At this the Gryffindor prefect Emmeline Vance turned to face him, "You've never heard of Fawkes?"

"Fawkes?" asked Tom.

"That's the phoenix's name," answered Emmeline kindly. "Dumbledore showed it to us in one of our post Quidditch parties. We needed some decoration and Dumbledore called in Fawkes and the phoenix supplied, festooned the common room with scarlet and gold. It stayed that way for weeks."

"Fawkes was part of NEWT Care of Magical Creatures," piped in Professor Kettleburn wheezily. "You didn't take the class though, so you missed your chance." He added in a stern tone. "Dumbledore was kind to lend it to me. Not many chances you get to teach Phoenixes with an actual bird as a subject, usually you do it by telling them about the properties of the feathers. He found it in Palestine years ago. Before he started at Hogwarts. He was in a bad place in that time, just a few years after his mother died and they were close and it hurt him a great deal. Fawkes, Albus said, came to him in his time of need and he gave him the strength to continue and to come here to Hogwarts."

"How old was he when he started here?" asked Tom curiously.

Professor Dippet gave Tom with a shrewd smile of understanding before answering, "He was twenty three, Tom. I was the Arithmancy teacher at that time and Head of Gryffindor House when Albus took the post of Charms teacher, though he believed he was better suited to his present post as the Head of Transfiguration Studies and he was right of course."

"Of course," said Herbert Beery knowingly. "None of us thought that Albus would stay for the long haul. We always thought he would become Minister of Magic."

"I am not sure we should be trading gossip in front of the students," said Dippet reprovingly.

"Oh calm down, Armando," exclaimed Slughorn heartily. "They've given their NEWTs and they're all of age, aren't they? Besides they've known it for as long as we have that Dumbledore was holding himself back staying at Hogwarts for all these years."

Professor Dippet glared at him, "So you think the calling of the teaching profession is only an acceptable second choice..."

Slughorn shifted uncomfortably before recovering with a toothy grin, "Oh come on, Armando, I didn't _mean_ that. For wizards such as me and you," he wavered under Dippet's withering glare, "I mean that for some exceptional wizards like Dumbledore, the only thing to do is to take the mantle of the leader. He was born for it. He's on the Wizengamot, he gives regular opinions to the Daily Prophet and he's a personal friend of the Minister and has his hands on many of the wizard legislation anyway. I'm just saying why not make it official."

Tom sat silently in his chair going over those words. Here for the very first time he got an inkling into the mystery of Dumbledore. Dumbledore who refused the post of Minister of Magic, which every witch or wizard in the land desired for themselves but confined himself to achieving what Tom had wanted for himself. Becoming a household name with respect and adulation and an influence that spanned across the entire country and stretched around the world. Was Dumbledore doing what Tom planned to do when he took the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts. Gather a platform to eventually take power. Tom wondered if Dumbledore would stay at Hogwarts now. The entire community had a hero in their midst and they would clamour to install him above them all as their leader and guide. Or was he planning to topple the existing order, build his own army. Dumbledore was a powerful wizard, full of rare gifts and weapons. He had succeeded in domesticating a phoenix which was considered a near impossibility by most magizoologists. And he had defeated a wizard without conscience but full of deadly skill and murderous intent all on his own. And he was clearly in prime physical shape from the manner in which he moved in those images in the Prophet. But more than that, he saw through the lies and the bad faith as well as he did. He saw Tom for what he was and wasn't fooled with the delusions that other witches and wizards were.

The door of the chamber opened and a tall, thin man in blue travelling robes stepped in to the room. His sharp blue eyes gazed around the room solemnly before he pulled out his wand and waved it with a tiny twitch of his fingers. At once the room in the chamber recieved brighter lighting than was possible from the fireplace. Where the dim light of the fireplace casted shadows around the old faces of the professors, now there was light that made them look somewhat younger and fresher than before.

"I hope you don't mind, I was hoping to test my new wand," said Dumbledore plesantly, twirling the wooden object in his fingers.

At once cheers and claps broke out in the room. Merrythought and Beery hugged him while he shook hands with Dippet, Slughorn and Beery.

"Horace, I have something for you!" Dumbledore pulled out an emerald green bottle with a red ribbon wrapped around it's neck.

The students laughed as they watched Slughorn shamelessly kissing Dumbledore's cheek in gratitude and hastily hide the bottle in his robes, not even considering opening it and sharing it with his party. Dumbledore rubbed the spot on his cheek where he recieved the kiss and turned to face the students.

"So how did your NEWTs go?"

There was a cry of incredulity. The students didn't stay up late wanting to talk NEWTs with the hero who conquered the evil Grindelwald. Sturgis Podmore from Hufflepuff shamelessly asked for details.

"Is it true that he's mad, that he has two Giants in his castle?"

Dumbledore paused, "Mad? I would say he's eccentric, remorseless and has very poor taste in music. He was however most lucid in his trial and quite rational in talking about his self-justifications for his many crimes...What interests me is that he's safely bound in Nurmengard prison, the magic in the prison is powerful and strong and he will languish there for the rest of his life."

"Wasn't Nurmengard the prison he built for his enemies?" asked Tom. Dumbledore's blue eyes fixed at Tom's grey ones for the first time and Tom, gifted in Occlumency though he was, still felt that Dumbledore saw through him.

"Yes, Tom," answered Dumbledore calmly, "that's how I am sure that he will be safely locked there. The magic he used to construct it is very strong and he won't be able to escape from that prison. Besides that, he is severely weakened by our confrontation and it will be hard for him to muster strength to even attempt to escape."

Professor Merrythought fixed her attention to Dumbledore's wand, "That's not an Ollivander's creation is it?"

"No, Galatea, it is not," answered Dumbledore seriously. "I recieved this from Gregorovitch...I always wondered about Gregorovitch's creations." He added in a strange tone. "Although I must say I miss my old wand."

"Did it burn out?" asked Dippet curiously. "It often happens in a duel that lasts as long as the one that you had with Grindelwald."

"All I know is that it became clear to me that my old wand would no longer be of use after I defeated Gellert," answered Dumbledore calmly. "It no longer performed basic spells and conjured a poor armchair with a spring sticking out. This one on the other hand serves me well. For now at least. So why did all of you stay up so late for me?"

"The guard of honour," exclaimed Dippet quickly. Immediately the students and the teachers arranged themselves against the fireplace, their wands held aloft as they faced Dumbledore. Tom, the tallest in the room aside from Dumbledore, stood in the back.

Armando Dippet cleared his throat, "We wanted this to be a small homecoming surprise for you Albus...so a one, and a two and a three..."

As one, they launched into a rendition of the school song. Tom who stood in the back, merely mouthed along with the chorus of _"Hogwarts, Hogwarts, Hoggy Warty Hogwarts_" as Dumbledore's eyes were filled with tears. When he was finished, he pulled out his handkerchief and blew into it.

"And that is the reason why I will never leave this school," he said heavily. Podmore and Vance cheered along with Beery, Merrythought and forgoing propreity, Armando Dippet who doffed his hat to Dumbledore.

He conversed with the teachers and students for another hour, forestalling discussions on his great duel but talking about the efforts of reconstruction in wartorn Europe and the trials of the many war criminals in the region. Dumbledore seemed far more curious about the goings on of the castle and the career preparations of the students than they were in his vanquish of a powerful, murderous dark wizard.

"What took you so long Albus?" asked Slughorn seriously.

"Oh I returned to Britain some time earlier this evening," answered Dumbledore. "But first I stopped over to meet my brother Aberforth."

"Ah yes, the goat herder," said Slughorn distastefully. "How is he?"

"He was in a good mood today, one of his goats gave birth to a kid," replied Dumbledore wearily. "We talked for some time and then I went to Godric's Hollow to talk to Bathilda Bagshot," At Emmeline Vance's inquisitive stare, "She was an friend of my mother's. Then I went to the Forest to return Hagrid and Ogg the Thestral they allowed me to borrow. And then I came here."

Tom kept a blank calm face throughout the gathering until at last they began to disperse back to their rooms.

Tom trailed a good distance away from the other students, wondering again about what he would do after leaving the castle in a few weeks. He considered staying at the Inn in the village where he would wait until he recieved his NEWTs. He would then visit the houses of his Slytherin friends for a brief while before they began their Post-Hogwarts' career and wait until Professor Dippet replied to his request for a teaching post at Hogwarts.

"Professor Dippet has told me that you want to teach here at Hogwarts?" asked a familiarly pleasant though totally unwelcome voice.

"Yes sir," said Tom without turning around to face the man who was walking beside him. Tom was almost the same height as he.

"Curious choice of career wouldn't you say, Tom?" asked Dumbledore calmly. "I never considered teaching at your age. It only occurred to me after a few years of...hard earned lessons. It's something that requires life experience, Tom. Experience beyond the confines of getting the best scores at school and placing first at all your tests, or becoming Head Boy...or winning a Special Services Award."

Tom still didn't turn around as they walked along the hallway. "I don't have a Dark Wizard to defeat to provide me the needed life experience, sir?"

Dumbledore chuckled, "That's not life experience, Tom. I spent my time in Europe eating excellent food made by gracious house elves who travelled with my group, we drank the best oak matured mead and carried a bottle of Ogden's Best Firewhiskey and sang and danced in our spare time. It was almost a vacation until we came across the dark wizards who were outnumbered and outspelled...Of course, Grindelwald was a challenge...When one talks of life experiences, Tom, one talks about experiences pertaining to the strength of someone's character."

"And you don't believe I have that strength?" whispered Tom in a challenging tone.

"No, Tom, I don't think you do," said Dumbledore calmly. "I say this because you percieve this strength as a weakness, like many young witches and wizards of your age. You have little interest in the most powerful magic of all..." Tom turned around to face Dumbledore, the grey eyes meeting the piercing blue. "The most terrible and most beautiful of all forces in the world...that derives from the love we humans share and experience with others...You on the other hand, divide all who you meet by the services they can render towards you and barter kindnesses in exchange. For all your charm and your popularity, you remain as alone as you were in that orphanage." Tom did not hide the look of cold fury on his face and the flash of red speckled through his grey eyes. If Dumbledore had seen it, then he had pretended not to notice it.

"Only now, you have reached a stage where you have chosen to impose this loneliness on your self...You will learn one day, Tom, that it is not our abilities that define us, but our choices! And until you learn this, you remain bereft of the strength needed for being a teacher."

**NOTES**

_This chapter is by far my favourite to write and I think it's the best one I've written so far. I considered ending the story after the third one, since I had so few readers but luckily I got three good reviews, including one from Niger Aquila who likes Tom Riddle more than any other writer on FFnet and whose works served as an inspiration for this story. He asked me about the plot of the story and why the summary feels confusing. The reason was I can't write a good summary to a story with a ridiculous word limit. The other reason is that I had no clear idea what direction the story was going. I initially wanted to do a one-shot about how Voldemort created the Horcruxes. I wondered how sick and disgusting the process might be. I hope I have given it enough justice in the beginning of this chapter. I imagine that if a soul exists, it should have the colour red. The third film of the HP series made it purple with music notes but for me it should be red, bright red. Not as red as blood, but red like a rose or a chrysanthemum. The use of Unicorn blood and snake venom comes from Voldemort's long sermon at the end of Goblet of Fire where he briefly explains how Pettigrew put him in a rudimentary body - "A spell or two of my own creation...blah blah blah...unicorn blood..." _

_The actual process is based more on heroin addiction than on any dark rite. I figured that to get the soul out of your body was a great violation and it should be something self-mutilating but felt viscerally just like a junkie looking for a fix. Slughorn in the scene in the book only mentions a spell needed to make a Horcrux but JKR says that she saw it as a series of things one had to do. And I think Slughorn only knows of the Horcrux but wouldn't know how to make one. Tom only asked Slughorn on the possibility of making more than one. I stretched the process further. Though never having taken heroin, I can't vouch for accuracy of details beyond seeing some movies and reading medical papers. I hope the details are disgusting(of course I also hope it's well written). As for the references to Faust, I thought it was ridiculous to __**not**__ mention him when you are dealing with a man who barters his soul in exchange for power and immortality. There was a figure called Johann Faust who actually existed around whom myths and legends came up. I made him into an actual wizard who lived very wrong but who actually spent his time living in debauchery rather than taking over the world. _

_As for the direction of the story, there's no plot or drive to it. There is no plans for a hidden secret in Tom Riddle's past to "explain" why he is evil. He is what he is and he will stay that way. Sometimes he can be charming and witty other times a total monster. What I want to do was to create a series around the fascination of Tom Riddle's rise to power. Why the idea of a poor orphan becoming the most feared of Dark wizards is fascinating. How a total outsider reverses and twists the foundations of a parochial society for his own ends. The twisted evil twin of the Oliver Twist story. Someone like Harry wants to be himself and be left alone, someone like Tom wants to revenge himself on that society by making it bend to his knees. So I got the idea to pick out certain moments which are mentioned in the books(the amount of information on Tom Riddle's backstory at school is actually more than the information on the MWPP generation). It's not a long series. In fact, I plan to end the whole thing in the next three chapters if possible._

_I have no intention to repeat the scenes that are already there in the canon(with the exception of filling out scenes referred to and mentioned but not depicted) nor do I plan to do novel length step by step, killing by killing vis a vis Voldemort. I'd find doing that story depressing and a waste of time. Just moments and flashes of insight into Voldemort and his fascination with his quest to power and why it is attractive. The next chapter would be set in the first reign of terror of Voldemort's, it'll be between his rejection for the job by Dumbledore and the night he decides to attack the Potters. It'll be fun to write I think because you'll see a lot of the main canon cast in that. Then the one after that is the period when Pettigrew finds him and his attack on the Ministry of Magic at the end of Book Five and at the beginning of Book Six when he recruits Draco Malfoy. It'll be about the great hidden moments in the canon, the schism between Voldemort and the Malfoys, and his relationships with his Death Eaters. The last is actually during the nineteen years of the epilogue, dealing with how the Wizard World looks at Voldemort's legacy. _

_The next chapter would be about what Voldemort planned to do in his first period and also if there were moments when he regretted the path he chose, I won't say more. _


	6. Powerman

**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).


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