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edenfallingWhat if the newly-disembodied Voldemort had noticed his link to Harry? A dark AU.
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lasultrix for beta-reading this chapter. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not hers.
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Strange Likenesses: Chapter 3
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He woke up.
At first he didn't noticed the strangeness, too weighted down with sleep and aches and a dull, burning pain in his forehead. Then he realized that he had woken up. That meant he had been asleep. He was conscious. He had a body -- weak and sore, but resilient with youth. He had magic -- he could feel power tingling in the remnants of his soul, waking a faint, chiming resonance from his distant Horcruxes. He was alive.
Tom almost laughed, before he remembered that his body was gone. The only body he could inhabit rather than overshadow was Potter's, and, judging from the jumbled memories of those last minutes in front of the Mirror, Potter had nothing to laugh about at the moment. He was in no shape to fight; his safety lay in people's ignorance of his existence. He wore Potter's body. He would pretend to be Potter.
Cautiously, he opened his eyes.
Something gold glinted above him. He blinked, clearing the blur of sleep, and the glint resolved into Dumbledore's glasses.
"Good afternoon," the old man said.
Tom stared, his mind racing frantically. He wanted to kill Dumbledore -- there was nothing he could imagine wanting more -- and nothing further from his grasp. If he revealed himself... no. Later, when circumstances were in his favor. He was in Potter's body. Dumbledore thought he was Potter. What would Potter say?
"The Stone!" he tried. "Quirrell was trying to get the Stone! What happened?"
"Calm yourself; the Stone is safe, and both your friends and Professor Quirrell are fine," said Dumbledore.
As if he cared about Potter's friends -- that insufferable girl and the red-headed fool could die for all he cared. They had nothing to do with... wait. He had never met Potter's friends. How did he know their appearances and personalities? Tom looked around, trying to disguise his confusion as simple disorientation. Vertigo washed over him as he turned his head.
He seemed to be in the hospital wing, lying in a bed with white linen sheets; the bedside table was piled with what looked like half the contents of the Hogsmeade sweetshop.
"Tokens from friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, noting his change of attention. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows."
Typical, thought Tom, after his headache subsided a fraction. Wizards were hopelessly impractical about certain things. They had never known life without magic; it made them soft.
"I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat," continued Dumbledore. "No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it."
"A toilet seat," repeated Tom. That did sound like the Weasley twins... and again, he should not have known that. He fought back a surge of dizziness. "How long have I been in here? And what happened to Quirrell and the Stone? Saying that everyone is fine doesn't explain anything."
"You have been in here three days," said Dumbledore. "Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round; they have been extremely worried."
Three days? He supposed his awakening -- his desperate, instinctive strike at the weakening walls of his prison -- might well have caused significant shock to Potter's body, mind, and magic, and the peculiar reaction of Potter's curse scar to Quirrell's touch was doubtless another factor. "I'm sorry they've been worried," said Tom, putting a note of concern in his voice. "But sir, the Stone...?" He didn't have to fake a slight waver; pain took care of that for him.
The old man sighed. "I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Neither you nor Professor Quirrell managed to remove it from the mirror, and touching you seems to have ripped apart the Imperius Curse controlling his mind. He tells me he was waiting for the alarm spells to call me back from London, so that I could find a more secure hiding place -- which I have not done. Instead, I destroyed the Stone."
"Destroyed?" said Tom, blankly. "But--"
"To you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but rest assured my actions were for the best. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all -- the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for us."
Tom lay there, lost for words. That insufferable old bastard. He still presumed to lecture him, lecture Lord Voldemort, after all his achievements, after his conquest of death, after his... oh. Of course. Dumbledore thought he was talking to Potter.
Or did he? Dumbledore hadn't once used Potter's name, Tom suddenly realized. How much did the old man know?
"Sir? I've been thinking... if somebody was controlling Professor Quirrell, why did they want the Stone? Did it have anything to do with that cloaked man Malfoy and I saw in the Forest? The man who killed the unicorn? Do you think it might have been He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
Tom decided not to think too hard about how he knew details of Potter's recent life. The information was useful; he would use it. Besides, trying to track the source of those memories made his headache throb in protest.
"Call him Voldemort," said Dumbledore. "Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."
True. He had always appreciated that effect. "Yes, sir. But, if it was him, or his followers, he's going to try other ways of coming back, right? He hasn't gone, has he?"
"No, he has not. He is still out there somewhere. He did not die on that Halloween night, but he is no longer truly alive, and so he cannot be killed, cannot die. Nevertheless, he may never recover. It will merely take one person who is prepared to resist him, to fight what seems a losing battle -- and if he is delayed, and delayed again, why, he may never return to power. Those who wish to succeed him, to replace him, face the same hurdles. Evil is endlessly hungry, but it can always be resisted in this fashion -- one battle at a time, until it devours itself."
Something stirred at the back of Tom's mind, nearly seismic in intensity. He winced, pressing one hand to his forehead. Potter's scar burned against his palm.
"Sir," he said quickly, dancing over the surface of his hatred, "there are some other things I'd like to know the truth about, if you're willing to tell me."
"The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie."
The old man meant that, astonishingly enough; moral qualms were such peculiar things. "Well," said Tom, "people call me the Boy Who Lived because Voldemort couldn't kill me. But I didn't do anything. Why didn't his curse work? Why did I live when nobody else ever did?"
"Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. I do not know the answer. I have suspicions -- I may even have theories -- but only Voldemort and Lily Potter know the true answer to that question."
But he didn't know! If he'd known, he wouldn't have died. "Lily Potter? My mother?" He felt as if his voice were doubled and echoing within his head, pounding like a drum.
"Yes. You see, she died to save you, and a love that powerful leaves its own mark. Not a scar, not a visible sign, but to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved you is gone, will give you some protection forever. It is in your very skin. That, I believe, is why Quirrell was able to break through Imperius once he touched you. The person who cast the curse on him was full of hatred, greed, and ambition -- such impulses could not maintain their strength in contact with profound love."
His cheeks were unaccountably damp. Tom touched them, and realized his body was crying. Dumbledore became very interested in a bird out on the windowsill, allowing him a moment to brush aside the baffling evidence of weakness.
"My mother died to save me," he said, once again hearing that curious, throbbing echo. "But... but why would that stop a curse? Lots of people must have died trying to save their families and friends." Dozens. Hundreds. Always crying and pleading and throwing themselves in the way of his curses, to no avail. All they had managed was to increase their loved ones' suffering in the brief space before death. It had been amusing, in a pathetic fashion. "Why didn't love protect them?" His head ached, and his breath hitched.
"Here, I am afraid, we are venturing into the realm of things I cannot tell you," said Dumbledore. "One day, when you are ready, you will know." His voice rang with finality, and Tom gave up on pursuing the matter for the moment.
Besides, his head was pounding; he didn't want to fence with Dumbledore while he couldn't think clearly. "Sorry, sir," he managed. He closed his eyes, hoping darkness would help soothe the pain.
"Are you feeling all right?" said Dumbledore. "I seem to have tired you out while you were still in pain -- I apologize for that."
"I asked. I wanted to know," said Tom.
"Yes, you did," agreed Dumbledore. "Still, as your elder and your teacher, I am responsible for you, and I should have taken more care. I suggest you rest now, and perhaps make a start on these sweets in order to, as Muggles say, raise your blood sugar." He poked around in the pile of gifts; Tom heard boxes rattle and shift. It seemed odd to him that people would send him gifts -- he hadn't realized people actually liked him instead of seeing him as a symbol or a storybook hero. Something intangible shifted again, and he bit down on a groan.
"Ah!" said Dumbledore, accompanied by the crinkling of plastic. "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them -- but I think I'll be safe enough with a nice toffee, don't you?"
Tom considered what other flavors might be toffee-colored. Wheat toast. Muddy sand or sandy mud. Cooking oil. Depending on the shade of toffee, dog shit.
Dumbledore choked. "Alas! Ear wax!"
Tom's mouth curled up into a smile, and his body laughed, sympathetically. "It could have been worse, sir."
He wasn't laughing. He hadn't spoken.
Tom sat bolt upright, both hands pressed against Potter's scar. Pain ripped through his head, echoed back, doubled and redoubled between his mind and a foreign consciousness -- Potter's mind, awake at last! -- and he screamed.
"Resist him, Harry! This is your body -- throw him out!" shouted Dumbledore, but his voice came from the bottom of a well, from the other side of the world; it had no meaning, no sense. There was nothing but pain and fear and two minds, two lifetimes of memories, trying to fit around each other in a space meant only for one. "Tom, let go of him! You do not belong in this world anymore!"
They were still screaming, still scrabbling for control, fighting the slide into that crushing abyss where Tom had spent nearly eight years, when the nurse rushed in and Stunned them.
"I'm sorry, sir," Potter whispered, as darkness swallowed them both.
---------------------------------------------
End of Chapter Three
Back to chapter 2
Continue to chapter 4
Read the final version at ff.net
---------------------------------------------
In other news, I have about 150 words written for the final request prompt, and will probably have that done tomorrow or Monday.
Thanks to
lasultrix for beta-reading this chapter. Any remaining canon goofs, grammar mistakes, continuity errors, implausible characterizations, bad dialogue, boring passages, and Americanisms are my fault, not hers.---------------------------------------------
Strange Likenesses: Chapter 3
---------------------------------------------
He woke up.
At first he didn't noticed the strangeness, too weighted down with sleep and aches and a dull, burning pain in his forehead. Then he realized that he had woken up. That meant he had been asleep. He was conscious. He had a body -- weak and sore, but resilient with youth. He had magic -- he could feel power tingling in the remnants of his soul, waking a faint, chiming resonance from his distant Horcruxes. He was alive.
Tom almost laughed, before he remembered that his body was gone. The only body he could inhabit rather than overshadow was Potter's, and, judging from the jumbled memories of those last minutes in front of the Mirror, Potter had nothing to laugh about at the moment. He was in no shape to fight; his safety lay in people's ignorance of his existence. He wore Potter's body. He would pretend to be Potter.
Cautiously, he opened his eyes.
Something gold glinted above him. He blinked, clearing the blur of sleep, and the glint resolved into Dumbledore's glasses.
"Good afternoon," the old man said.
Tom stared, his mind racing frantically. He wanted to kill Dumbledore -- there was nothing he could imagine wanting more -- and nothing further from his grasp. If he revealed himself... no. Later, when circumstances were in his favor. He was in Potter's body. Dumbledore thought he was Potter. What would Potter say?
"The Stone!" he tried. "Quirrell was trying to get the Stone! What happened?"
"Calm yourself; the Stone is safe, and both your friends and Professor Quirrell are fine," said Dumbledore.
As if he cared about Potter's friends -- that insufferable girl and the red-headed fool could die for all he cared. They had nothing to do with... wait. He had never met Potter's friends. How did he know their appearances and personalities? Tom looked around, trying to disguise his confusion as simple disorientation. Vertigo washed over him as he turned his head.
He seemed to be in the hospital wing, lying in a bed with white linen sheets; the bedside table was piled with what looked like half the contents of the Hogsmeade sweetshop.
"Tokens from friends and admirers," said Dumbledore, noting his change of attention. "What happened down in the dungeons between you and Professor Quirrell is a complete secret, so, naturally, the whole school knows."
Typical, thought Tom, after his headache subsided a fraction. Wizards were hopelessly impractical about certain things. They had never known life without magic; it made them soft.
"I believe your friends Misters Fred and George Weasley were responsible for trying to send you a toilet seat," continued Dumbledore. "No doubt they thought it would amuse you. Madam Pomfrey, however, felt it might not be very hygienic, and confiscated it."
"A toilet seat," repeated Tom. That did sound like the Weasley twins... and again, he should not have known that. He fought back a surge of dizziness. "How long have I been in here? And what happened to Quirrell and the Stone? Saying that everyone is fine doesn't explain anything."
"You have been in here three days," said Dumbledore. "Mr. Ronald Weasley and Miss Granger will be most relieved you have come round; they have been extremely worried."
Three days? He supposed his awakening -- his desperate, instinctive strike at the weakening walls of his prison -- might well have caused significant shock to Potter's body, mind, and magic, and the peculiar reaction of Potter's curse scar to Quirrell's touch was doubtless another factor. "I'm sorry they've been worried," said Tom, putting a note of concern in his voice. "But sir, the Stone...?" He didn't have to fake a slight waver; pain took care of that for him.
The old man sighed. "I see you are not to be distracted. Very well, the Stone. Neither you nor Professor Quirrell managed to remove it from the mirror, and touching you seems to have ripped apart the Imperius Curse controlling his mind. He tells me he was waiting for the alarm spells to call me back from London, so that I could find a more secure hiding place -- which I have not done. Instead, I destroyed the Stone."
"Destroyed?" said Tom, blankly. "But--"
"To you, I'm sure it seems incredible, but rest assured my actions were for the best. You know, the Stone was really not such a wonderful thing. As much money and life as you could want! The two things most human beings would choose above all -- the trouble is, humans do have a knack of choosing precisely those things that are worst for us."
Tom lay there, lost for words. That insufferable old bastard. He still presumed to lecture him, lecture Lord Voldemort, after all his achievements, after his conquest of death, after his... oh. Of course. Dumbledore thought he was talking to Potter.
Or did he? Dumbledore hadn't once used Potter's name, Tom suddenly realized. How much did the old man know?
"Sir? I've been thinking... if somebody was controlling Professor Quirrell, why did they want the Stone? Did it have anything to do with that cloaked man Malfoy and I saw in the Forest? The man who killed the unicorn? Do you think it might have been He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named?"
Tom decided not to think too hard about how he knew details of Potter's recent life. The information was useful; he would use it. Besides, trying to track the source of those memories made his headache throb in protest.
"Call him Voldemort," said Dumbledore. "Always use the proper name for things. Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself."
True. He had always appreciated that effect. "Yes, sir. But, if it was him, or his followers, he's going to try other ways of coming back, right? He hasn't gone, has he?"
"No, he has not. He is still out there somewhere. He did not die on that Halloween night, but he is no longer truly alive, and so he cannot be killed, cannot die. Nevertheless, he may never recover. It will merely take one person who is prepared to resist him, to fight what seems a losing battle -- and if he is delayed, and delayed again, why, he may never return to power. Those who wish to succeed him, to replace him, face the same hurdles. Evil is endlessly hungry, but it can always be resisted in this fashion -- one battle at a time, until it devours itself."
Something stirred at the back of Tom's mind, nearly seismic in intensity. He winced, pressing one hand to his forehead. Potter's scar burned against his palm.
"Sir," he said quickly, dancing over the surface of his hatred, "there are some other things I'd like to know the truth about, if you're willing to tell me."
"The truth." Dumbledore sighed. "It is a beautiful and terrible thing, and should therefore be treated with great caution. However, I shall answer your questions unless I have a very good reason not to, in which case I beg you'll forgive me. I shall not, of course, lie."
The old man meant that, astonishingly enough; moral qualms were such peculiar things. "Well," said Tom, "people call me the Boy Who Lived because Voldemort couldn't kill me. But I didn't do anything. Why didn't his curse work? Why did I live when nobody else ever did?"
"Alas, the first thing you ask me, I cannot tell you. I do not know the answer. I have suspicions -- I may even have theories -- but only Voldemort and Lily Potter know the true answer to that question."
But he didn't know! If he'd known, he wouldn't have died. "Lily Potter? My mother?" He felt as if his voice were doubled and echoing within his head, pounding like a drum.
"Yes. You see, she died to save you, and a love that powerful leaves its own mark. Not a scar, not a visible sign, but to have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved you is gone, will give you some protection forever. It is in your very skin. That, I believe, is why Quirrell was able to break through Imperius once he touched you. The person who cast the curse on him was full of hatred, greed, and ambition -- such impulses could not maintain their strength in contact with profound love."
His cheeks were unaccountably damp. Tom touched them, and realized his body was crying. Dumbledore became very interested in a bird out on the windowsill, allowing him a moment to brush aside the baffling evidence of weakness.
"My mother died to save me," he said, once again hearing that curious, throbbing echo. "But... but why would that stop a curse? Lots of people must have died trying to save their families and friends." Dozens. Hundreds. Always crying and pleading and throwing themselves in the way of his curses, to no avail. All they had managed was to increase their loved ones' suffering in the brief space before death. It had been amusing, in a pathetic fashion. "Why didn't love protect them?" His head ached, and his breath hitched.
"Here, I am afraid, we are venturing into the realm of things I cannot tell you," said Dumbledore. "One day, when you are ready, you will know." His voice rang with finality, and Tom gave up on pursuing the matter for the moment.
Besides, his head was pounding; he didn't want to fence with Dumbledore while he couldn't think clearly. "Sorry, sir," he managed. He closed his eyes, hoping darkness would help soothe the pain.
"Are you feeling all right?" said Dumbledore. "I seem to have tired you out while you were still in pain -- I apologize for that."
"I asked. I wanted to know," said Tom.
"Yes, you did," agreed Dumbledore. "Still, as your elder and your teacher, I am responsible for you, and I should have taken more care. I suggest you rest now, and perhaps make a start on these sweets in order to, as Muggles say, raise your blood sugar." He poked around in the pile of gifts; Tom heard boxes rattle and shift. It seemed odd to him that people would send him gifts -- he hadn't realized people actually liked him instead of seeing him as a symbol or a storybook hero. Something intangible shifted again, and he bit down on a groan.
"Ah!" said Dumbledore, accompanied by the crinkling of plastic. "Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean! I was unfortunate enough in my youth to come across a vomit-flavored one, and since then I'm afraid I've rather lost my liking for them -- but I think I'll be safe enough with a nice toffee, don't you?"
Tom considered what other flavors might be toffee-colored. Wheat toast. Muddy sand or sandy mud. Cooking oil. Depending on the shade of toffee, dog shit.
Dumbledore choked. "Alas! Ear wax!"
Tom's mouth curled up into a smile, and his body laughed, sympathetically. "It could have been worse, sir."
He wasn't laughing. He hadn't spoken.
Tom sat bolt upright, both hands pressed against Potter's scar. Pain ripped through his head, echoed back, doubled and redoubled between his mind and a foreign consciousness -- Potter's mind, awake at last! -- and he screamed.
"Resist him, Harry! This is your body -- throw him out!" shouted Dumbledore, but his voice came from the bottom of a well, from the other side of the world; it had no meaning, no sense. There was nothing but pain and fear and two minds, two lifetimes of memories, trying to fit around each other in a space meant only for one. "Tom, let go of him! You do not belong in this world anymore!"
They were still screaming, still scrabbling for control, fighting the slide into that crushing abyss where Tom had spent nearly eight years, when the nurse rushed in and Stunned them.
"I'm sorry, sir," Potter whispered, as darkness swallowed them both.
---------------------------------------------
End of Chapter Three
Back to chapter 2
Continue to chapter 4
Read the final version at ff.net
---------------------------------------------
In other news, I have about 150 words written for the final request prompt, and will probably have that done tomorrow or Monday.
