Chapter Text
In the end, the Potter girl invited him in.
Voldemort had bided his time for years. When he had first become trapped in this body, it had not been so: he had struggled and strived, as was his nature, exerting all his might to overpower the girl’s childish will. Yet to his humiliation, he had been found lacking. The lingering protection created by the mudblood Evans stymied him at every turn.
He had been left as a pitiful spirit, barely clinging to existence, unable to look through the girl’s eyes, nor hear through her ears, much less divine her thoughts. Mere flashes of the world were all he could manage, and that alone took great effort.
She was at Hogwarts, that much he could tell through the brief snapshots. A Gryffindor surrounded by red-headed Weasleys. Beyond that, he received little more than glances of lessons, the odd part of inane conversations, and, on one occasion, an extended insight into the girl brushing her hair.
But then, after several years, something changed. The girl’s thoughts began to spiral towards the dark, nourishing his spirit, drawing the two of them closer. His influence grew, and with it the girl’s awareness of his presence. To his surprise, her mind did not reel back. Instead, he could sense a new ambition take her, a wild recklessness driven by desperate need.
She began to draw upon his strength, and he allowed it. The promise of power was a well travelled road to Voldemort’s service, and as a magnanimous Lord, he was happy to show her the way. Knowledge leaked from his mind to hers—the Conjunctivitis Curse, the Bubble-Head Charm, the principles of organic transfiguration—and the foolish girl was ever hungry for more, thinking the magic to be a gift freely given.
With every spell, she made herself more his creature.
Then came a breaking point. Something had happened to the girl, a trauma which greatly increased her desperation. Mortal peril threatened her, some ever-present danger, and she perceived him as her salvation.
He began to feed her ideas of his own. Why content herself with receiving his knowledge as if through a sieve, when she might seize for herself real power? The odd spell here and there was not enough. She needed more.
He had the knowledge. It did not take long to conceive of a suitable ritual, and bit by bit he passed her the pieces. She even believed it to be her own invention, as if inspiration had struck. It was dark magic of the deepest kind, to meddle with the soul, but the girl felt that she had no choice.
She would smash the barrier between his spirit and hers, taking his knowledge for her own, absorbing his power into her own soul. Or so she thought.
When the day of the ritual arrived, Rose Potter did not live long enough to realise her mistake. With the blood protection gone, it was almost easy. The girl had no training in mental defence, much less understanding of the soul. His spirit seeped into hers. Like ink in water, Lord Voldemort contaminated every corner of her soul. His magic dwarfed hers in strength; the weight of his experiences and knowledge was too great a burden for her to bear. She was drowned out.
One moment he was but a fragment, the next a whole soul, the spirit of Rose Potter corrupted to become his.
He was free at last.
Lord Voldemort opened his eyes for the first time in over a decade.
Oh, how rich the colours, even shrouded in darkness! How sweet the smell of musty damp! Deeply he breathed the still, heavy air, enjoying the way his lungs filled, and his hands felt at his face, marvelling at the sense of touch. Truly, there was nothing so fine as living. It was intoxicating.
He found himself in a library—not the vast, cathedral-like library of Hogwarts, but something smaller, more intimate, a family library of respectable size. Yet whoever called this home was of a slovenly nature: a thick layer of dust covered every surface, the windows were encrusted with grime, and the silver lamps were all tarnished.
A cauldron sat on the floor before him, still steaming from recent use, and around it the evidence of a ritual. A smile spread across Voldemort’s new face. The girl had been bold, he would give her that. Had his host been of a timid nature, he would never have escaped his imprisonment. But the bold were easily led astray, if they lacked the wisdom to judge when to exercise their bravery.
It was an unfortunate inconvenience that his spirit was now housed within the body of Rose Potter, an unavoidable byproduct of this means of resurrection. It was a novelty. In all his long years, despite his many experiences, he had never before needed to adopt the form of the fairer sex, and had held little interest in doing so until now—though he was aware that certain establishments within Knockturn Alley would offer the experience to degenerates and perverts.
In truth, he did not know whether it would be possible to regain his male body. Each and every soul knew its proper form, and this new amalgamated soul was unlikely to recognise his original body as its own. No ordinary transfiguration could return him to that body except for a brief time; his own magic would fight the transformation. Only alchemy held the power to transform the soul itself, but for all his knowledge, he had only given alchemy cursory study, finding it intolerably woolly in nature. Now that the need had arisen, he would need to investigate further.
In the meantime, this would be his form.
Curiously, he tested Rose Potter’s body. Her hands, at least, were pleasingly dextrous, long-fingered and strong, though his lip curled at the red and gold paint adorning her nails. A silly vanity. He found her limbs surprisingly flexible—the girl was lithe, with the build of dancer, or perhaps more accurately a Quidditch player—and he was able to go from sitting to standing with an ease and grace which the male body could not achieve, joints stretching and bending in ways unfamiliar to his mind.
Regrettably, he was distinctly short. Such things were of little import, of course. Lord Voldemort’s might was in magic, not strength of limb, and none could deny his power. Still, it was an unfortunate loss. There was a certain authority communicated by an imposing stature which he would need to achieve by other means.
Perhaps he might still gain greater height. The girl’s precise age eluded him, but she seemed to be somewhere in the midst of adolescence. Even through her white nightdress, the curves of breasts were unmistakable, and the drape of the fabric spoke to hips wider than a man’s. So long as he had not yet reached the age of majority, he might still experience a late growth spurt and gain further inches of height… with the assistance of magic if not by the grace of nature.
He found the girl’s wand next to the cauldron. To his great surprise, the match was immediate—the wand felt remarkably similar to his native yew and phoenix feather wand, and a strong bond already existed between them. An advantage of having consumed the girl’s soul, no doubt. How convenient.
For a moment, he luxuriated in the feel of a wand, relaxing into the familiar sense of invincibility. With a wand in hand, there were none who could claim to be his superior, and few his equal.
A causal flick conjured a tall mirror.
The girl, it had to be said, was beautiful. Long, dark hair hung in a curtain, framing her face. The doe eyes that met his gaze were of the deepest green, and her skin was pale and smooth, its softness speaking of a careful routine of creams, lotions and potions. Her flawless face was marred only by an ugly scar on her forehead, red and angry as if recently acquired.
Voldemort frowned. The scar irritated him. How curious… it seemed that his pride could tolerate no flaw, even in feminine form. He might have expected to feel disdain for the effort the girl put into her appearance, effort which could have been better spent on worthwhile endeavours. But he found himself pondering a dozen means by which he might correct the scar. If this body was to be his vessel, he would need to treat it well.
Even if it was annoyingly time-consuming.
For all its disadvantages, the situation was not without its benefits. He was in the body of his prophesied destroyer. No doubt the Potter girl associated with Dumbledore and his ilk, and was trusted by them. Not since the early days of his rise had he been able to walk unhindered through the world, passing seamlessly beneath attention, unknown and underestimated. He would enjoy the novelty.
Still, he would need to maintain the girl’s habits, if he wished to embed himself within his enemies without suspicion. It would be most inconvenient if they were to suspect something. In that regard, it would have been easier had the girl been less beautiful. He would need to study the correct method of painting one’s nails.
No matter. Lord Voldemort had suffered greater indignities in his long rise to power.
A second flick of his wand vanished the mirror, the cauldron and all evidence of the ritual, and a further swish eliminated his footsteps, restoring the dust to its previously undisturbed status. It was time to determine where exactly he had incarnated.
Beyond the library, the house was dark. It was the middle of the night, and the house lay in silence, only lit by the occasional lamp. The sparse light revealed a dwelling much the same as the library, a dilapidated property of past grandeur, the wallpaper faded and peeling, the woodwork half-rotted, with evidence of infestation by spiders and vermin.
A token effort had been made to render the place suitable for habitation, signs of recent attempts to clear away the dust and cobwebs, but clearly the attempt was at an early stage, and much of the deterioration remained.
It was a peculiar location for Rose Potter to call home. He might have assumed it a Potter dwelling, gone to ruin in the absence of the girl’s dead parents, but Voldemort doubted the Potters decorated their houses with snake motifs. No, something stranger was at work.
It was when he reached the ground floor that familiarity blossomed. He had been here before. The layout of the central staircase stirred his memory, and when he spotted the tapestry in the entrance hall he knew precisely where he was.
Grimmauld Place, the traditional seat of the Black heir. Once upon a time he had been invited here by the traitor Regulus, sharing a meal with the boy’s disagreeable parents. He chuckled quietly as he looked around… oh, how the mighty House of Black had fallen. That proud fool Arcturus had never fully committed to his cause, despite his grandchildren flocking to join the Death Eaters. Clearly, ruin had been his just deserts.
The resolution of one mystery simply created another. What could possibly have brought the Potter girl to one of the Black residences?
Barefoot, the marble floor cold on his feet, he explored the ground floor, reminding himself of its geography, eventually leading to the kitchen. He had not seen this room the last time he had visited—honoured guests were not shown the kitchen—but now it seemed to be the heart of the house, cluttered with the evidence of daily life. The embers of a fire still emanated heat from the grand hearth, plates cheerfully washed themselves in the sink, and the long table at its centre was strewn with discarded hats and cloaks, half-finished drinks, and several days’ worth of newspapers.
For a wizard fumbling through the dark, a stack of newspapers was a goldmine.
He devoured them, eyes flicking greedily across headlines and dates, pausing here and there where an article appeared of greater relevance, his unrivalled mind absorbing information like a sponge.
The world was changed.
There was no mention of the war, or the Death Eaters, or Lord Voldemort. Britain was at peace, and had been for a long time. He might have expected a formidable power such as Bartemius Crouch to succeed Bagnold as Minister, or failing that a rising star like Amelia Bones. But no, it was Cornelius Fudge who had been chosen by the Wizengamot.
A smirk played across Voldemort’s lips. The last he knew, Fudge had been a junior minister in the Department of Magical Catastrophes. A well-liked fellow, jovial and generous, but hardly a wizard of stature.
This suited him well enough. It would not do for a powerful Ministry to set itself against him.
He was not so proud as to think he was the true Lord Voldemort. No, he was the unexpected evolution of a fragment, a piece intended for a horcrux which had somehow ended up imprisoned within the Potter girl. He was still unsure of how this had occurred. All he remembered was turning his wand on the baby girl, followed by an explosion of immense, wrenching pain.
The fate of his other self was unknown.
According to his own experiments, if a horcrux were to gain the agency of human form, it should remain bound to the whole, loyal to the master soul. It was one of the advantages of this means of immortality: even if the Death Eaters were wholly destroyed, eventually one of his horcruxes would find its way into the hands of a wizard, possess them and seek out the master soul to engineer its resurrection.
Voldemort’s lip curled at the idea of such subservient existence, and that itself was telling. A true horcrux would not be repelled by it; indeed, a horcrux should not even be capable of conceptualising itself as separate from the master soul. They were one and the same.
Which meant he was no longer a horcrux. His consumption of Rose Potter’s soul had rendered him something different, something new. Something… mortal, he realised. Only the master soul was tethered to life by the horcruxes. As a separate, independent entity, he was like any other person, vulnerable to the threat of wizards, disease, or if all else failed, the rigours of time.
He grimaced, that feeling of invincibility slipping away from him. He had not been mortal in a long time. It was not a pleasant realisation.
He would need to make a horcrux at the earliest opportunity. But he would not be hasty. He needed to better understand his position before he risked a murder.
Pushing that aside for the moment, he returned his attention to the papers.
Clearly, the other Voldemort had not yet regained human form, if the world remained at peace. The papers largely concerned themselves with the humdrum of daily wizarding life. The Egyptians had discovered yet another pyramid and were rushing to conceal its discovery from the Muggles. An Indian healer claimed to have invented a potion which improved dragonpox survival rates. The Falmouth Falcons were three wins away from being crowned the Champions of 1995.
Domestic politics appeared to be equally routine. Curiously, Fudge’s focus as Minister was education: the papers were filled with stories of growing Ministry concern over the standard of teaching at Hogwarts, and less-than-subtle hints that reform was needed to bring the school under Ministry purview.
Disdain filled him at the thought of the Ministry getting their grubby fingers on Hogwarts castle, a place he remembered with great fondness. And yet he could not help but be amused at how powerless Albus Dumbledore was to stop this growing threat to his position.
The old man had lost his touch, it seemed, or else the shine of defeating Grindelwald had finally worn off. The Wizengamot had recently voted to remove him Chief Warlock… a position he must have gained after the war, and had now managed to lose in short order. He had lost his position at the International Confederation of Wizards, too, and that was an even greater insult: the Confederation was a slow and lumbering beast, but when mustered to action was the greatest power in the wizarding world. Dumbledore had been the Chairwizard of the Confederation Council since the defeat of Grindelwald. Even if the position was largely honorary—the Chair did not vote—it represented a major loss of prestige.
Most curious of all, the papers appeared to avoid spelling out precisely why Dumbledore had been banished from these positions. Oh, there were mentions of rumour-mongering, of doom-saying, of going senile… but whatever rumours Dumbledore had been spreading went unspoken.
More subtle were the occasional references to Rose Potter. The girl appeared to be a celebrity of some kind, known as the Girl Who Lived—presumably a reference to her survival of his Killing Curse. Like Dumbledore, however, her reputation was suffering. Snide references appeared in all sorts of articles… “A tale worthy of Rose Potter”, one concluded, while another referred to her as the “Girl Who Cried Wolf”.
Normally, Voldemort would have relished his enemies tearing each other apart in such a manner. In this instance, however, special circumstances applied. The girl’s reputation was now his own; every slander against Rose Potter was an insult to his person. This could not be allowed to stand.
A presence approached.
“Rose?”
Voldemort turned to see a girl peering into the kitchen. She was of a similar age to Rose, with bushy brown hair and a plain face. Unlike Rose, Voldemort noted she wore Muggle pyjamas. Not a pure-blood, then.
“Can’t sleep?” the girl asked, venturing further into the kitchen, close enough to see the table strewn with newspapers. She gave Voldemort a look of pity. “You wanted to see for yourself, I guess? The articles about you, I mean. I know it’s easier said than done, but it isn’t healthy to dwell. They’ll get their comeuppance one day, like Rita did.”
He met the girl’s eyes. Hermione Granger, her open mind informed him. That was not a wizarding name… it was no surprise that Rose Potter associated with mudbloods, of course, but it had been some time since Voldemort had been forced to endure their presence. No matter. He had spent many years feigning acceptance of their kind… he could do it again, if necessary.
“They slander me,” he said, the first time he had spoken with the girl’s voice. It was a strange experience. Even his vocal chords felt different, and the voice which came out was unfamiliar: higher, yet softer. His speech patterns would be entirely his own, of course, but there was little he could do to try to imitate a girl he had never met. The best strategy was to keep his elocution simple for the time being. “Dumbledore may be content to sit back and allow it, but I shall not suffer such persecution.”
Granger frowned. “I’m not sure there’s much you can do, to be honest. I looked it up—the library here has quite a collection of books on wizarding law, you know. I suppose it shouldn’t be a surprise, given the Blacks were very political, back in their day. But anyway, newspapers have an exception to slander laws, so long as they are reporting in the public interest. Ironically, it was passed in an attempt to prevent Ministry censorship… but now the Ministry is using it as a shield to go after you and Dumbledore.”
The girl was quite right. He was familiar with the law in question. Of course, Lord Voldemort was not constrained by such legal protections… more direct solutions were available, if legal means offered no solution. But there was no need to inform the mudblood of his thinking.
“As you say,” he acknowledged, bowing his head. “But perhaps all that is needed is a conversation with the editor.” His eyes flicked to the front page of one of the papers. “This… Barnabus Cuffe. Perhaps he will listen to reason.”
Granger looked interested at that idea. “Well, it worked with Rita, at least. And she was just a reporter. I bet the editor of the Daily Prophet has all sorts of skeletons in their cupboard… he’d have to, to get to the top. But I don’t know how we’d figure it out… and if the Ministry is leaning on him to publish this rubbish, they probably have something on him too.”
Voldemort raised an eyebrow. Curious, that the mudblood’s mind jumped immediately to blackmail, when all he had mentioned was a conversation. It was in her base nature, he supposed, to turn to criminality at the first opportunity. It was not a terrible idea, however.
“I shall write to him in the morning,” he announced. “I am sure he will be willing to set an appointment with the so-called Girl Who Lived.”
“In the morning?” Granger asked. “I don’t think you’ll have time. Don’t you remember? Mr Weasley said you’d need to leave really early for your trial.”
Voldemort froze.
Trial? What trial?