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Lord Voldemort exalted in the feeling of being alive.
All those years of an existence bound only by a thread; floating as a wraith, possessing animals and weak-willed humans, as a pitiful homunculus - he finally possessed a body of his own.
Spidery fingers trailed along his arms, claw-like nails scoring his collarbone, before running along his cheekbones. Voldemort let out a sigh of gratification, the slight pain where nails met skin rapturing him in its sheer feeling. He let his hands slide from hollow cheeks, ritual-enhanced vision augmenting the rippling muscles as he flexed his fingers, aware his eyes were gleaming with delight.
His followers watched anxiously where they stood in a loose semicircle, surrounding him, the whimpering rat, and the headstone where the Potter boy - his supposed nemesis - was bound. Nagini, his precious Horcrux, hissed in amusement, tongue flickering out to taste the stench of fear in the air. He could not have stopped the breathy laugh if he tried, turning to look at Potter, whose eyes were gratifyingly alight with terror.
“You know, of course, that they have called this boy my downfall?” Voldemort breathed out, enjoying the sound of his own voice, eyes fixed on Potter’s stark-white face. “You all know that on the night I lost my powers and my body, I tried to kill him. His mother died in the attempt to save him — and unwittingly provided him with a protection I admit I had not foreseen… I could not touch the boy.” Voldemort bit back the flare of rage at the reminder of the upstart mudblood responsible for his…temporary setback, instead lifting one skeletal finger to hover near Potter’s cheek.
“His mother left upon him the traces of her sacrifice…” He said, lip tugging up into a mirthless smirk. “This is old magic, I should have remembered it, I was foolish to overlook it… but no matter. I can touch him now.”
He gently let the tip of his finger rest on Potter’s defined cheekbone, eyes widening in glee at the howl of pain the boy let out. This was his prophesized vanquisher? He laughed softly, letting his finger trail up to the bound boy’s scar.
The scream the boy let out was intensified from his previous cry, sounding almost…animalistic. Potter’s skin burned with the feeling of magic, far more powerful than the unimposing presence he felt from the boy mere moments ago. Startled at the reaction, Voldemort removed his finger, leaving the boy to heave in gasps of air, chest rising and falling rapidly. He took one neat step back and cursorily examined the boy. For a few seconds, they remained this way, Voldemort hiding his surprise and Potter with his chin resting on his chest.
And then Potter lifted his head and Voldemort almost flinched.
Before in the verdant eyes where there had been terror and agony, now the dark shadow of pain was rapidly fading to reveal assurance, and something far more ancient that Voldemort could not name. Unnerved, he froze slightly, his instincts screaming that he had poked a slumbering predator and now it was time to run as fast as his legs could carry him.
Fighting back the irrational fear, Voldemort let out a harsh chuckle trying to regain his control, which he felt was slipping from his grasp like water from cupped hands.
“Daunted by a little pain, Potter?”
The boy’s lip curled into a parody of a friendly smile.
“Hardly Tom,” he said, his suave tone mocking in its own right. Voldemort could not supress his hiss of rage. “I’ve had much worse from men far more threatening than you.”
“Do not use that name,” Voldemort bit out, despite his anger starting to feel disconcerted at the turn of the conversation. The boy’s eyes, somehow sharper and more alert than they were mere minutes ago, latched onto the display of weakness.
“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” he said in a soft voice, “son of a muggle and a squib, the hypocrite lord.”
Voldemort gritted his teeth, aware of his followers shifting as sudden seeds of doubt were planted in their minds, feeling strangely helpless. “My name is Lord Voldemort, the greatest wizard this world has ever known.” He let his magic crackle in the air, bearing down on the Potter boy’s, attempting to beat it into submission.
Potter’s eyes went half lidded in a lazy smile, before Voldemort nearly staggered back at the feeling of pure power emanating from the boy, almost indescribable in its magnitude. The magic sunk into his skin, his core, his thoughts, it was black, it was concentrated, it was endless, it became all he could focus on. He had never felt smaller in his life, utterly dwarfed by the mere boy who stood before him. Never had he felt an aura like this one. His vision blurred as he fought to regain his focus. This wasn’t possible. Potter was a child, he could not possess such magic, especially not magic that felt so malevolent, so cold, so other. For the first time in a long time, Lord Voldemort felt fear.
In his peripheral vision, he could see his marked stumbling like drunk men, leaning against headstones to withstand the oppressive aura. Avery was curled up knees to chest, and Malfoy had fallen to his knees. Voldemort was convinced Wormtail was sobbing in sheer awe. He forced himself into awareness at the sound of approaching footsteps, red eyes widening at the sight of the boy now free from his bonds, twirling a wand that was much darker than the holly wand Wormtail had disarmed him of not much earlier.
“I have to admit,” Potter said, looking genuinely sad, “that this was far easier than I thought it would be, considering you are the dark lord that made part of my life hell, but no… a little death magic and you’re fighting to stay upright.”
Setting aside the boy’s comment of “death magic,” Voldemort stilled and hid his smirk as he saw Nagini slowly slithering behind Potter, fangs bared. As she leapt to strike, Potter’s wand twitched and she froze in suspended animation, and with that, Voldemort’s rekindled hope dimmed rapidly.
“That was a little rude,” Potter said, a frown on his face, leaving the dark lord to fight off his disbelief at the situation before Potter’s eyes locked on Nagini. “What a pretty snake,” he crooned, flicking his wand and splitting her evenly down the middle, silvery scales decorated with red.
Voldemort let out a howl of rage at the loss of not only a loyal companion, but his most recent Horcrux. He battled through the heady effect of Potter’s magic and forced himself to raise his wand to cast his favourite curse. Potter was so close; he wouldn’t have time to move.
And he didn’t move, he simply let the green light of the Avada Kedavra wash over him and remained unaffected, a smile still on his lips. Voldemort felt the icy grasp of terror on his heart and the feeling of helplessness sinking into very bones. His rebirth ritual had negated the effects of his mother’s protection, this resistance to death was something else entirely. Could this mere boy be… immortal?
The boy took advantage of his moment of shock and the debilitating effects of his magic to pluck the yew wand out of Voldemort’s loose grasp, face scrunching into something resembling pity.
“This almost feels cruel, like kicking a helpless puppy.”
Voldemort wanted to Crucio the boy until his voice gave out and he couldn’t scream anymore, but he could barely move under the influence of the brat’s power, and based on his attempt at the Killing Curse, wasn’t even sure if the Cruciatus would have any effect on him. He was completely at the boy’s mercy, fallen from the few minutes of grace he had after thirteen years of waiting.
Potter’s face brightened.
“That’s two now though, three if you count the diary, so only four to go.”
Diary? Surely Potter wasn’t referring to…
Three distinct pops sounded in the air as three objects appeared and hovered in the air, and Voldemort felt his blood run cold. Potter must have seen the despair on his face, because he grinned sadistically.
“The cup, the diadem, the locket,” he lifted his hand to show the Gaunt ring on his finger, “the ring - more importantly my stone.”
“Potter, you can’t,” Voldemort said, before throwing his pride to the wind and begging. “Please.”
Potter appeared pleasantly surprised.
“I must admit, I did not expect your fear of Death to outweigh your ego, Tom,” he said humorously. “But I’m afraid a friend of mine doesn’t like your Horcruxes, he considers them cheating you see,” he said as if that explained anything that had been going on. Intent coalesced in his eyes and Voldemort realised that there was no way his Horcruxes were emerging from this hell he found himself in intact.
The three hovering Horcruxes were consumed in a flame that Voldemort knew to be Fiendfyre. He joined in their screams and fell to his knees as the flames licked up against the gleaming metal and they were destroyed. Potter ignored him and flicked the ring, sending a burst of black smoke into the fire, adding to the cacophony of screams. Eventually, the flames fizzled out and Voldemort was left prostate on the ground, shaken from the loss of his soul. Never had he thought he could feel so defeated in his life, not even at the orphanage had he felt this weak. Glancing around at his followers who were incapacitated solely on the feel of the boy’s magic, he was struck with the petrifying realisation that he would only live as long as Potter allowed him to.
“Who are you?” He asked lifting his head, knowing this boy wasn’t Potter, the 14-year-old who trembled in fear and muddled his way through the Tournament. “What are you?”
Potter’s green eyes gleamed with an ancient power, and Voldemort suddenly realised a cloak was now covering his shoulders that wasn’t there before, rippling with a non-existent wind. The stone on the ring seemed to almost glow, and Voldemort felt the wand the boy causally grasped pulse with undiluted power.
“I am the Master of Death,” Potter stated, “I travelled back in time several hundreds of years honestly just because I could, to defeat you.”
Voldemort felt a chill along his spine. He had of course read the ‘Tale of the Three Brothers’ but thought it to be just that, a fairy-tale used to lull children to sleep. And yet, some primal force was screaming at him that what Potter was saying was true. His shoulders curled and he unwittingly found himself trying to appear smaller.
Potter looked down on him with some twisted form of compassion.
“Honestly, this is a lot less satisfying than I thought it would be, given you’re so pathetic.”
Voldemort gritted his teeth but couldn’t seem to make himself respond.
Potter surveyed him dispassionately before grinning.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to make the most of what I have now. Who knows, after this, I might go back in time again and fuck around with your younger self.” Seeing the horror that Voldemort was sure was written all over his face, the Master of Death gave a merciless smile. “After all, there is absolutely nothing you could do to stop me.”
Voldemort could not have supressed the cry of hopelessness that escaped him, and Potter let out a cold-blooded laugh.
“Death,” Potter began casually, and Voldemort felt the presence of something other appear behind him, leaving him shuddering at the confrontation with what he had feared since his youth and his impending demise. “I’ll leave him in your capable hands.”
“As you wish, Master,” a velvety, low, and utterly terrifying voice spoke before Voldemort was grabbed by the shoulders. A cold almost beyond his perception enveloped him and Death began to callously drag him to a place he knew he would never return from.
The last thing Lord Voldemort saw was Harry Potter’s mocking wave and his cold, green eyes.