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When Tom and Harry were young they would play in the courtyard of the Potter estate. Harry was heir to the Potter fortune, and Tom was just a Riddle. Some small family that meant nothing in the world. But Harry never seemed to care that his servant was a nobody, lower than low. An orphan.
They were both orphans.
Harry would spend day in and day out with Tom. Harry would be attended to by servants who were loyal to his late parents, and the servants seemed to make it their goal to make sure Tom was always available when Harry called.
Harry and Tom would lay on the pretty white bench in the courtyard, the one next to the fountain that bubbled. Harry would close his eyes and just enjoy listening to Tom go on about how one day he would be a man who could have everything handed to him on a silver– no, platinum platter. For even with the fortune left to him, Harry wasn’t that rich. He would change the world, and make it as kind as Harry. Force it to be that way if he had to. Harry would laugh at him as he went on and on, but the tales Tom could spin about this future were fantastical. They made the day to day life seem mundane. Two thrones, and Harry would sit to Tom’s right, because he was the right person for Tom.
He would swear that he was the right man for Harry, and he wouldn’t stop saying that until the day Harry died.
Harry’s death was dismally mundane. He had caught polio one day while taking a trip to the theater. It was a dumb movie anyway, certainly not worth all the havoc it caused in Harry and Tom’s lives. It was rough, at first the doctors assured him it would only last a week. Harry is a fighter they would say, before patting Tom’s arm and leaving.
In the beginning, Tom believed them, Harry was a fighter, and he wouldn’t just leave Tom. He wasn’t allowed to. Tom continued to believe, until Harry lost his legs. They were out in the courtyard again, enjoying the sound of the bubbling fountain, except when they went to leave, Harry couldn’t get up. Tom had had to carry him to his bedroom.
The doctors hadn’t stopped reassuring Tom after that day, but they looked at him with more and more pity every time they did so.
Tom would hold Harry’s hand, and fall asleep next to his bed every night. He would tell Harry about the future they would have together, when he got better. Harry liked the stories where he was a prince in an actual castle overlooking the sea. Liked the stories where Tom was king and held grand galas every month to celebrate olde holidays and new ones, just to have an excuse to celebrate.
Months went by before they brought in what the doctors called ‘the iron lung’. It was an iron coffin that let Harry’s head poke out. Very expensive they told him, the finest thing to help a polio victim. Harry laughed – tried to at least – when Tom asked, said it cost as much as one of the pretty new houses on the way into town. No longer could Tom hold Harry’s hand while he was inside this coffin meant to help him. Still, he continued to tell stories with a soft smile until they both fell asleep at night.
The iron lung had helped at first, but there was a terrible storm one night and the electricity had gone out.
Harry had gone with it.
Tom had cried, wailed, bawled.
It was an open casket funeral, finally free from the iron coffin he was once confined to and killed by.
There on Harry’s arm lay his soul mark, only to show up when one of the partners die. On his right arm was a skull with a snake coming out and wrapping around itself like an infinity. It’s mouth was open, like it was happy, even in death.
As he looked over Harry’s gravestone, Tom spared a glance at his own arm. It was the same as Harry’s, but it’s mouth was closed, grim-set and unhappy with death. Tears ran down his face as he looked at his arm. He swore it would be the last time he cried ever again. He looked at the words etched on the grave one last time. The only memory most would ever know him for; “Even in the face of death, smile like you rule the world.”
He turned his back on the words, mocking him as they were, and set out to go make the future for Harry that he had promised.
Many years later Lord Voldemort, once the boy Tom Riddle, had an army, based in a castle by the sea, and important political galas were held each month. In the center of his courtyard was a beautiful fountain that bubbled with a plaque declaring it ‘The Fountain of Youth’. The fearsome Lord Voldemort was only served with platinum platters, be it food or letters. He sat on a throne with another to his right, both intricately made. Many people had begged to be the person who sat to his right, but none could compare to the one it belonged to. Every single person who swore their allegiance to this powerful lord were marked with a skull and a snake on their left arms. They were his family, but they would never be his prince, no one would be the right person for him.
Above the grand gate to his castle overlooking the sea was the phrase “Even in the face of death, smile like you rule the world.”
So, he smiled.