Chương 355: Chapter 355: Snake in the Grass
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
I would like to thank my beta, Awdyr, for his help in this chapter.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
4 April 1995, Little Hangleton
Lord Voldemort sat in one of the few remaining safe houses he had left, a hidden bunker in Little Hangleton with a small emergency stash. He remembered feeling a bit silly at the thought of ever needing it. After all, he had never expected to be in this position. He had enough followers to host him in their manors, underneath their century-old wards in case he was injured. In the worst case, Riddle Manor was his most fortified position, not due to its location but its significance.
Wards, in general, depended very highly on the significance of the location to its castor. The wards on a small house that had been owned for a thousand years were generally more powerful than that of a newly built manor, not until they fully considered the manor to be their home, maybe even not then. Hogwarts was the ultimate proof of this. Thousands, if not millions of students over a thousand years have considered the castle to be their home, and that alone enhanced the wards there in a way that no other place in Britain could hope to match.
His followers were mostly purebloods from very old families, and their homes were very well-protected. He had warped the same principle with Riddle Manor. Generation of Riddles had lived in this place, and even if the power of a muggle family didn't mean much to him, the power of an ancestral home still could be harnessed, even if it was to a lesser degree than most.
His stashes and safe houses were not as well protected. They couldn't be. And yet, in some ironical term, while Riddle Manor had been wiped from the map by Lily Evans' attack, alongside half of Little Hangleton, this place still stood, as if it was mocking him.
The witch had proven to be a very troublesome opponent to deal with. She had almost complete control over the Wizengamot and an army of enhanced werewolves who seemed extremely devoted to her. She had planned this, that was something that he realized now. She was spying on most of the influential people in the country, ordering attacks on their homes the moment they entertained the idea of joining him.
Lord Voldemort found himself in a very compromising position. He didn't have any followers, no soldiers to command, no army of werewolves, with Greyback dead, no army of Giants, since he couldn't exactly discreetly go them and parley. Doing so would have left Evans with even more time to fortify her position, something that he couldn't risk, and it wasn't like he could send someone like Macnair to do it for him.
And his Death Eaters were all gone. The Lestranges and poor Barty were killed by that damnable Evans woman. Lucius Malfoy was also dead at the hands of some serial killer. Rookwood, Dolohov, Rosier, and Greyback were given the dementor's kiss and Macnair was in Magical Britain's new prison, Tartarus. He would have tried to break him out if he had enough force to do so. The dementors hadn't been enough. Dumbledore had designed the prison in a way that resisted their influence. They could feed, but that was it.
Poor Mulciber died at the hands of Potter during the attack on the Hogwarts Express, the Carrows were dead. Snape had disappeared for over a year, and there were no signs of Nott after he announced his return.
It wasn't supposed to have been like this. His return should have been celebrated, he should have been in a position of influence immediately, just like he had before his demise. Even now, the dementors had abandoned him as well, afraid of one of his own Horcruxes.
To be completely honest, that was something he didn't see coming. He was supposed to threaten the Black Patriarch into giving him enough funding to hire mercenaries or even help him recruit his assets. Orion and Walburga Black were very instrumental when it came to securing his early funding. That, combined with funds from the Nott, Malfoy, and Lestrange families, was more than enough to fund an entire war against Dumbledore. They were prepared to sacrifice an entire fortune to protect their nation from the headmaster's ambitions.
He expected Arcturus Black, a man known to oppose Dumbledore in most of his bills, to ally himself with him, even if it was reluctantly. After all, who better than Voldemort himself to keep Dumbledore out of Britain when he inevitably returned after the European tournament ended? Lily Evans? As smart as the witch was, she lacked Voldemort's raw power. She made up for this with enough preparation, trickery, and viciousness, but Dumbledore would have no trouble defeating her. She hadn't sacrificed what he did, released part of himself to secure his ambitions. She had never pushed the barriers of magic as he did, which was why Arcturus should have seen that Voldemort was the only reliable choice. Harry Potter was dead, probably assassinated by Dumbledore, and there was no one else.
All in all, he expected a reluctant old man at best but instead found a disaster. His own Horcrux, a fragment of his own soul, was defying him, not it was worse than that, he wanted to absorb him, for their positions to shift. When he felt his soul being prodded, being pushed towards his younger self, he couldn't help but flee in fear.
There were no accounts of Horcruxes turning on their creators before, then again, there were no accounts of Horcrux gaining sentience either. He knew that there was something wrong with the Diary's creation; he was young and grieving for that useless girl who died. It wasn't out of the question to believe that he had made a mistake.
But what could be the extent of this independence? How far could the diary's consciousness go? For the first time in decades, Voldemort felt a cold, gnawing fear. The Horcrux was not merely defiant; it was ambitious. It wanted to consume him, to become him. And if it succeeded, the question was what would happen to Voldemort? The thought was unthinkable—and yet, he had to entertain it.
The realization hit him like a curse. If Tom Riddle could have absorbed him, then could he have done the same to his other Horcruxes? The mere thought made him freeze. That alone would have prevented him from making even more since he couldn't risk losing bits of his soul once more. There was also the fact that he could instinctively feel like he had pushed his limit, that messing with his soul once more could mess it up very severely.
Absorbing a Horcrux necessitated pure regret and remorse for what he had done to create them, something that Voldemort didn't feel, and yet maybe Tom Riddle did. Maybe he used that regret to turn himself into the dominant soul. No, he needed to gather the Horcruxes and hide them somewhere that Riddle would never be able to find.
The locket and the ring would be the ones that were the most in danger. Riddle working with Black could have had something to do with Regulus leaving some kind of clue before his death, and the ring was something that anyone knowing his Gaunt ancestry could track down, which Tom Riddle obviously did. The diadem in Ravenclaw was the most protected, being underneath Hogwarts' ward, and the Cup in the Lestrange vault should be protected. No, wait a minute, Riddle has been free for almost two years. He could have easily had access to Hogwarts at this time and taken the Diadem. And hadn't there been a successful robbery of Gringotts just a few months before? Had that been him?
With Nagini dead, he might truly be in trouble. Had his own Horcrux orchestrated all of this? All this time, he had been focused on Evans, but he had a far more insidious enemy in mind, specifically himself.
No, he needed to check for himself and the ring was nearest. Voldemort apparated to the Gaunt Shack. It was a pathetic building, but its wards were stronger than most people would ever expect. He quickly bypassed them as if they didn't exist. He quickly walked up the stairs to the room and summoned the ring. A box floated towards him, and he commanded it to open, revealing the ugly black ring of his ancestors. Voldemort took a sigh of relief; even in the cast of a Horcrux being absorbed back, the object was always destroyed.
However, he decided to be thorough – this situation was unprecedented and there was nothing that could help him with it. He quickly dispelled the compulsion and the withering curse with a flick of his wand and frowned as he noticed that the ring didn't exude any magic. He had put on some enchantments to obscure the object's magical nature, but they shouldn't have worked that well.
He tried overpowering the detection charm and found nothing. He hit it with a dispelling charm, also to no avail. He couldn't help but be curious as he touched the ring and nothing happened. Could it be a fake? Had Riddle taken it and replaced it with a fake, hoping to fool him?
Angrily, he decided to put it to the test and destroyed the ring with a curse. If it had been a Horcrux, then it would have been intact from the simple spell, but the ring was shattered. That should have been it; however, a raven made of some kind of black mist appeared from the remains of the ring, flew towards him, and was swallowed up under his skin.
Voldemort froze as he felt it, a curse unlike any he had ever before, impacting his very soul. He had always been very good at sensing magic. It was perhaps, one of his greatest strengths. He could feel it, like a small rot, that affected the connection between his body and his soul, like some kind of slow-killing curse. Normally, it wouldn't have worried him; his Horcruxes would have been his safeguard, but he couldn't trust them anymore, especially with Riddle having gone rogue.
He could see it now; this had been a trap, one obviously designed by Riddle against him. He knew deep down that being hit with this curse would diminish his soul and make him far easier for Riddle to absorb. Without a body, he wouldn't have been able to fight back. He knew that Voldemort would be here, that he would try to gather his Horcruxes once more, and he used it as bait.
Voldemort was forced to accept the fact that the Horcrux knew magic that he did not, even if it should have been impossible. If he had any doubts when Riddle killed the dementors that attacked him, he didn't have any now. And that also meant that he did not know how the curse worked, only that it utilized soul magic and what its effects were, and that made it almost impossible to stop or even halt. He needed help. He needed a lot of help and quickly, and there was one person he knew could ever hope to help him.
No, he had sworn to himself that he would never come back to this place, not after what happened, not after the man betrayed him, the way his mentor, the only man he ever respected, saw him as nothing more than a pawn.
After tracking down his family artefacts while working in Borgin and Burke, Voldemort decided to travel the world, to see how magic was practised in other societies. It had been a very learning experience, even if he wasn't always welcome. He had learned arts thought lost to most of Europe and saw incredible and horrifying things, but nothing had ever compared to that castle in Albania.
He came there out of curiosity more than anything. He could feel the magic there and there were so many rumours of the darkest magics being practiced there. He had been pretty disappointed at first; he hadn't encountered anything other than vampire thralls and the occasional Vampire Lord, but that was it. He had been almost tempted to leave if he hadn't stumbled across its greatest secret.
Voldemort activated his emergency portkey out of reflex. It was one that he enchanted decades prior, in case of emergency, but he knew it would work and found himself standing before the intimidating but familiar castle.
Voldemort stood before the castle, its towering spires and jagged battlements shrouded in mist. It loomed against the darkening sky, its black stone walls weathered and ancient. The castle's silhouette was harsh and angular, almost claw-like, as if the very architecture sought to ward off intruders. Its windows, narrow and pointed, gleamed with an eerie, dull light, giving the impression that the structure itself was alive, watching his every move.
The entrance was a massive iron gate, adorned with runes that pulsed with dark magic, which also happened to open without any prompting from him, with a loud creak.
As he limped inside, the courtyard stretched out like a desolate wasteland, littered with the bones of men, women, children, and even magical creatures. Every shadow seemed to twist and writhe, and yet he couldn't help but feel bitter and nostalgic at the sight.
The castle door opened again, revealing his former mentor's mocking smile. "Well, if it isn't little Tom. It's been a while."
"I'm not Tom anymore."
The man's grin widened. "Oh, right. You're the dreaded Lord Voldemort now. Such a ridiculous nickname. To think my student would actually use it. So, what brings you here after all this time? Your exit was certainly dramatic, with all the yelling and swearing at never coming back to this place."
"I need your help," Voldemort growled. "No one else can."
The man's smile turned predatory. "Of course, Tom. But you know how this goes; my help won't come free."
Voldemort certainly wasn't eager to deal with Vlad Drakul again, unfortunately, he had run out of options. He could only hope that Drakul wouldn't ask for something drastic, but knowing the vampire, that was unlikely.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
AN: Sorry if this feels unpolished. I didn't have time to re-read it since work had me come in during the weekend. I wrote this in kind of a hurry, but it was a chapter that I'd been wanting to write for a while. For those who don't remember, Vlad Drakul was Grindelwald's mentor (as Flamel was Dumbledore's). I probably should have put it later, maybe as an interlude during the Sixth Task to act as a break, but it wouldn't have felt right since he'd have had time to try to out-think Riddle in the meantime.
Anyway, I know that things have been a bit slow in the past couple of chapters, but things are about to pick up starting from the next one. As usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.
Tình trạng nguồn điện hàng tuần
-- Xếp hạng
Quyền lực 
-- Đá
Quyền lực