Chapter Text
The last thing Voldemort saw was his own Killing Curse rebounding towards him. By the time he began to comprehend the horrific reality, it consumed his vision, and his life.
And yet, just as the understanding that he would die filtered up from the lizard-brain instincts of his cerebellum and into the frontal cortex of self-awareness, everything changed.
He knew it had changed, because the green light vanished and the Great Hall disappeared, replaced by a deep green canopy and sunlight filtering in through a window to caress his face.
He sat up at once, eyes snapping around the room in search of threats.
It was empty.
It was also not a room he recognised.
It echoed the style and arrangement of Pureblood master suites he'd seen in the past, but there were specific details which leapt at him as curious. Firstly, there was a large, soft cushion laid in front of the windows, upon which rested Nagini, curled up and enjoying the sun.
Voldemort stared. Her death flashed before his eyes, and the pain of the loss clawed at him, fresh as the moment that filthy boy and his filthy sword separated her head from her body.
He couldn't believe his eyes. How could she be alive? Was this a mirage? A dream he was having in the moments before death?
Fear seized his mind, but curiosity niggled free of the paralysing terror and continued asking questions.
If this was a mirage, a final dream before the end, why this place? Why a room he did not recall? It wasn't right. It did not fit as an ending for Lord Voldemort. If he was damned to purgatory and oblivion, it ought to at least look like it.
The priests had promised him hellfire and brimstone, not this.
This place was downright domestic.
It lacked the typical coldness of Pureblood bedrooms. Yes, it was immaculate, the furniture exquisitely carved, the carpets expensive, with a diamond chandelier hanging from the ceiling, but altogether, it had too much personality for pureblood tastes.
The colour scheme evoked the feeling of a depthless forest. Deep greens and emeralds, offset by splashes of maroon and gold. Someone had gone out of their way to strike a careful balance between elegant and cozy, and they had achieved it.
Then there were the bookshelves which lined almost the entirety of the opposite wall, filled with books and covered in a shimmering protective enchantment. Voldemort knew that enchantment; he had invented it himself to preserve ancient tomes and scrolls. A broomstick was mounted above the single bit of free space on the wall above the fireplace. It was polished to a gleam, and a trophy rested on the mantle below it.
Strange. Very strange.
He looked down at himself and saw that his fingers were long, pale, and thin. The greyish cast his skin had had since the resurrection was gone, replaced by the creamy colour it had been in his youth. His nails were no longer grey and sharp, but finely manicured and of a natural tint.
However, what startled him most was the ring. A simple gold band,fitted perfectly on the finger which typically carried wedding rings. Upon touching it, he felt a brief tingle of magic. The gold was warm from his skin and felt comfortable, as if he'd worn it a long time.
Voldemort examined himself further, touching his own face, finding the skin soft and smooth, without any dry scales. He had a nose, and most shocking of all, a head full of hair. His body felt different too, energetic and strong, something it had not been for a very long time. He flexed the muscle that was now on his arms, there wasn’t much, he was lean rather than built, but it was a shock after decades of being a wraith and years of occupying an incredibly thin and malnourished form.
This had to be investigated. Why was he not in his own body?
Flinging off the covers, he marched to the full-length mirror in the corner, ignoring the small voice in depths of his mind that was grateful for the mystery, as it served to be a much needed distraction from the horrors of death.
In the mirror, a new horror greeted him. His muggle father's face.
It was an exact match, only cleaner and better looking, the skin smooth and faultless, so perfectly shaven that even the shadow of stubble was absent. The eyes were the only thing that did not fit, wide and brown, innocent, even with the crow's feet in the corners. Everything else was the same; the strong brows, sharp jaw, and high cheekbones produced a stark and inviting beauty. The very thing that had ensnared Merope Gaunt, whose eyes looked back at him, filled with shock.
There was hair atop his head, as he'd had in his youth, but now with silver strands twining through the dark curls.
Voldemort scowled as the realisation dawned on him. He was looking at himself—an older version of Tom Riddle, the spitting image of his disgusting muggle father—except for his inviting brown eyes, the only mark his mother's blood had left on his appearance.
In life, Voldemort’s continual use of Dark Magic had eroded Tom Riddle's features, leaving him with a waxy, almost ugly, and definitively off-putting appearance. He'd come to enjoy it, as it resulted in far fewer people approaching him to flirt and a great deal more fear and obedience from his followers. It was why he hadn't bothered to correct the grotesque appearance that the resurrection ritual had granted him. In fact, he was now quite fond of the slitted red-eyes and the noseless face which could frighten so many into silence.
In its own way it had been quite pleasant to be so very unique. What it lacked in beauty, it made up for in power. It meant he no longer needed beauty to entice people to follow him. His power was enough. And he was finally free of the taint of his muggle blood.
Voldemort bared his teeth, loathing the weakness he saw in the mirror. He was wearing silk pyjamas of deep black, attire he would otherwise like, but on this body, it only served to make him look soft, like a kept man waiting for his wife.
Even as these thoughts rapidly cycled through his mind, curiosity followed like a determined hound. Why was he in a body he had never had in life? What sort of purgatory or after-life bothered to dress its denizens in—he checked the tag on them—yes, French silk tailored pyjamas from a world-renowned atelier?
What exactly was happening here?
Was this an elaborate trap set up by Potter? His chest grew cold at the possibility. Hope, once ingested, was a terminal disease. Yet, he could not deny the quiet, tremulous thought. Had he, somehow, survived? Like Potter, his mind whispered, and he ignored the part of him that was pleased at the idea of doing the very thing that wretched boy had been special for.
It would be pleasing to take that from him. It would be even more pleasing to be alive after all.
He turned towards the mirage of Nagini, wand in hand, and cast a multitude of spells; to detect any foul play that may be at hand. The spells returned nothing of the sort, and in fact, they confirmed that Nagini was alive, breathing, physically present, and not under a transfiguration enchantment.
"Nagini." He spoke her name in Parseltongue and felt his heart jump as she stirred, turned to face him, and hissed back.
"Master."
It was the same, low sound that had accompanied him for years. She uncoiled and slithered towards him without prompting, already knowing he wanted her close. The brush of her smooth scales against his fingers as she clambered up his arm and twined around his shoulders brought with it a confusing surge of relief and affection. The weight of her was exactly as it had always been.
She was real.
She had to be. Or this was a spell beyond his knowledge. A purgatory so strange even he, with his voracious appetite for knowledge, had not heard of it.
Reverently stroking her beautiful scales, he questioned her.
"Nagini, do you know where we are?"
"We are in Master's nesting room," she replied, her forked tongue tickling his ear. He tried not to smile like a besotted fool.
"How did we meet?"
Now she raised her head and titled it to face him directly.
"Has Master forgotten?"
He'd always appreciated how intelligent she was. Even among magical creatures, she was exceptionally shrewd.
"Indulge me."
"We met when Nagini was small, locked in a cage and forced to perform by that horrible man." She bumped his cheek with her snout. "Master saved me, and let me eat him!" She ended the statement with a sound that could only be described as the hissing equivalent of a chuckle.
Voldemort smiled freely now, recalling the memory. Deep in the mountains of India, he'd lived with mages that resided in the forest, concealed from prying muggle eyes and free to practice their dark magic. One mage, an elder of the tribe, bred powerful magical snakes in cages, forcing them to dance while he waited for them to grow to a size suitable for harvesting their precious skin, bones, and venom. What was left of them was tossed back into the cages to feed the next generation.
Irritated by this waste of magical life, Voldemort had freed Nagini, the only hatchling there at the time, and given her a taste of human flesh. She had sworn to be his faithful companion and had kept that promise for as long as she lived.
Voldemort's fingers clenched around his wand. If this was indeed illusory, then it was a special kind of cruelty. To offer him hope for one of the few lives he'd cared for besides his own.
Perhaps he'd underestimated this purgatory.
"And this ring? Do you know who gave it to me?"
Despite being a snake, Nagini managed to give him a look that said: ‘Are you stupid?’
"Your mate did. Is your mind damaged?"
Voldemort rubbed the ring with his thumb, feeling the indentation of the inscription on the underside, two initials, conjoined. TMR x HP. The first set was obviously his own, but who on earth was HP? The only name that came to mind was Harry Potter, but that was absurd, Harry Potter could not possibly be his….husband?
Maybe this was hell after all, if he had to consider such a possibility.
"Tell me about my mate."
"He is very pretty, and he brings me treats, praises me, and mates you often. He is a good mate. Nagini approves."
Voldemort wanted to laugh at the absurdity. He? To think he would marry a man, when he had disavowed marrying a woman, was madness. This must be a dream after all, a hallucination caused by imminent death, the brain's desperate attempt to excise the terror of annihilation.
He confessed himself intrigued, curious about the power of this mad fancy, who had it assigned to be his spouse? The words turned over in his mind "mates you often"; what a way to put it. Nagini could be so amusing at times. Apparently this husband praised her too, and brought her treats, which was impressive, considering Nagini frightened the balls off everyone who got too close. Just who was this brave fellow?
"How does he praise you?" Voldemort assumed he must be translating the praise for her to understand, a kindness he would not do for just anyone.
"He speaks to Nagini, tells my my scales are like jewels—"
Voldemort froze, unable to believe his ears. It could not be—
"He speaks to you? In Parseltongue?"
"Yesss," Nagini returned, a tinge of confusion in her voice. "How can you forget?"
"I have not forgotten, I was simply checking," Voldemort assured her, thoughts tumbling over each other in their haste to be heard. A speaker? How was that possible? He was the last and only heir of Slytherin. Was this some long-lost Gaunt relative he had never found in life?
But why, his thoughts insisted–why here, why now, would such a possibility manifest?
"Where may I find a portrait of him?"
Nagini hummed thoughtfully before answering, watching him curiously with her large slit-pupiled eyes.
"In the writing room, besides this one."
She meant his office. Somehow, Voldemort knew it was the room next door. Immediately, he marched towards it, trying to stall the inferno of rage that threatened to take over his mind. It could not be Potter. Of all the boorish stupidity in this dream, marriage to the boy he so loathed felt like a cosmic joke at his expense. It would be utterly vile. Was this illusion Potter's doing somehow? More likely, it was Dumbledore's, the old man still pulling the strings from beyond the grave, preparing this hallucination specifically to drive Voldemort to insanity.
The sickening sweetness of it all, marriage and wedding vows and husbands stank to high heaven of Dumbledore's saccharine taste for sentiment. No doubt, he had dreamt of this asinine domesticity with his imprisoned lover, and felt, in all his grandiose self-righteous arrogance, that he was doing Voldemort a favour by imposing it on him.
If there was anyone he hated more than Potter, it was Dumbledore.
Sweeping into the room he was right about being the office, he wasted no time admiring the large, well-appointed space. He ignored the sizable collection of books and magical artifacts neatly arranged on the shelves lining the walls, the generous terrarium that was settled into one corner and the well-loved and soothing scent of parchment, ink, and magical residue, making a beeline for the desk instead.
On its neatly kept mahogany surface, he found the portrait. It was framed and sat in a position where it would be in Voldemort’s direct line of sight if he were to sit at the desk.
It was indeed Potter.
But it was a Potter that Voldemort had never seen. This was a young man with doe eyes and a heart-stopping smile, which he flashed at the photographer. There was a wry twist to it, as if he and whoever had taken the image were sharing an inside joke, or flirting. Potter's eyes gleamed like gemstones, shades of emerald and jade and celadon swirling together, producing a colour so arresting it seemed to have its own inner light.
The truly mesmerising thing, however, was the happiness contained within the brilliant green. The shadows that had chased Potter his entire life and left his gaze haunted and miserable were nowhere to be found. The smile was inviting, the eyes warm, unburdened and carefree, and all the more alluring for it.
This Potter was a complete stranger, completely lacking the darkness that Voldemort knew lurked behind Potter's heroic image. He had seen it in the graveyard, when the boy had so determinedly refused to bow, and in the Ministry, when he had laughed hysterically at his own impending death, and in the moments before Voldemort had killed him a second time, when he had come so fearlessly to his doom. It had coalesced into a hard, cold understanding in their final confrontation, with Potter having the audacity to pity him, to suggest he try for remorse, when in reality, the boy had already determined to kill him and decided to put on one final show of compassion for his admirers.
The arrogance, the cheek, the unmitigated fucking gall of it was almost admirable now, for in all honesty, with hindsight, Potter had won.
Teeth gritted, Voldemort slammed the picture frame onto the desk facedown and viciously denied the urge to wonder what on earth he'd done to make Potter smile at him like that. For it was patently obvious who had taken the photograph; who else would Potter be smiling so sweetly at, if not his beloved husband?
With a snarl, Voldemort tore through the desk, searching for something, anything, that would help make sense of this mad world. The possibility that this was not after death still lingered in his mind but remained at the edge of his thoughts, not yet permitted an audience.
"Is Master searching for something? Does he need me to tell him where he keeps his favourite portraits of his mate?"
Ah, Nagini. Clever and helpful and perfect as always. He pet her, and his anger calmed. Whatever the truth happened to be, after-death mirage or impossible resurrection, he would find it, command it, and take control of his future.
"Yes, show me."
Nagina stretched out and dipped her head towards a section of the bookshelf, which on closer inspection, had a carved snake upon the edge. Voldemort already knew what it meant, the tried and tested method of Parselmouths for centuries.
"Open," he hissed.
The shelf opened inwards, revealing a small passage, lit with a neat arrangement of candles upon a shelf. It had the same hardwood floor and wood-panelled walls as the office, and another door at the end. Voldemort stepped through, recognising wards crafted by his own magic. His mind spun around and around; if it was Potter that Nagini meant, then how on earth could he speak Parseltongue?
The hidden room was packed with books, locked behind glass and humming wards. He walked past them, uncaring, for on the smaller desk in the centre of the room, was an achingly familiar companion.
A cheap notebook, with Tom Marvolo Riddle etched onto the back.
His diary, his very first horcrux, greeted his touch like an old friend, warmth blooming in his hands that cradled it. He stroked the cover affectionately, then found himself debating if it was worth writing to his younger self. Knowing his teenage demeanor, he would never live it down if he admitted to suffering such weakness.
Instead, he went looking for his ‘favourite portraits of his mate’, whatever those were. Though why he would keep them hidden in this room instead of out in the open was anyone's guess.
Inside the desk was a small safe, solid steel, requiring a key and a command in Parseltongue to open. The key had to be created using parsel-magic, ensuring none but a well-educated Parselmouth could open it. The idea that Voldemort may have taught this smiling fool of a Potter such magic burned his brain.
He would soon put an end to that derangement.
The safe clicked open, and inside was a neat collection of books. He recognised a few of them, amusingly dubbed ‘torture diaries’ in his mind. They were a collection of the studies he'd done while creating Inferi in his youth, when he'd taken the opportunity to experiment with dark magic, particularly destruction and torture magic, before transforming the subject. Waste not and want not, and in that spirit he had detailed the hypothesis, methods, and results, and included evidence he'd created with a small magical camera.
He flicked through the book, pleased to see the neat annotations and details of the various magical and non-magical methods he'd used to break people. His gaze lingered on a particular photograph, a handsome young man's face upturned, twisted in misery, mouth open, eyes spilling tears down his face.
It was useful knowledge, particularly the techniques that left no marks. There was a beauty to some of the images he'd produced as well, like this one, the sight stirred a tingling warmth in his belly. That young man had killed himself in the next image, choking to death on his own blood. Simple mental influence, not nearly as heavy-handed as the Imperius curse. He'd been especially invested in mind manipulation that left no sign of itself. A research conundrum he now wished he had returned to, perhaps it would have enabled him to win against Potter.
Unfortunately, being a Dark Lord did not leave much time to spare for research.
To his immense curiosity, there were new books in the collection, volumes he had no recollection of writing. He flipped through them, pausing to read here and there, and feeling his excitement and alarm grow. The notes were in a special code only he could understand, and they included dates and details he had no memory of, and the magic described was astounding. It appeared he had made progress on the possibility of altering many minds at once, through tailored media, subtly adjusted for each consumer, perfectly constructed to nudge their views just so…
But he had no memory of it. He had never done this. He had died, killed by his own rebounding curse. He was dead. This was a strange post-death dream he was having; it was utterly nonsensical—marriage to Potter of all people, his nemesis—and yet, the existence of research only he could have conducted, in a safe only he could open…
Did that not prove he was not dead?
The idea, now facing him fully, stopped him short. He closed the books and put them back in place. He took a deep breath. He was not fool enough to hope. But was this not proof? Undeniable proof? Yet, if he was indeed not dead, then where was he? Who was he?
His mind looped through the possibilities, examining and discarding them as they came. Afterlife? No, as he was not dead. Rebirth? Possible, very possible, but why not reborn as a babe? Why an adult already, having missed much of his life? Time travel? Also possible, but there was no time like this in the past, where he was apparently very much married to Harry bloody Potter.
Rebirth and memory loss? Or perhaps this was his afterlife, a punishment, except he'd been transferred into the body of another version of himself. A version of Tom Riddle who'd kept his name and entered into a blessed union with a man, but still retained his true self, hidden here in these volumes. Or perhaps he was that Tom Riddle, and had simply gained the memories of a past life, overwriting this life's record?
That begged the question of Potter too; would he also be transported here upon death? Voldemort was fairly certain one of his loyal followers would kill the boy; yes, most definitely, as they would not let his death go un-avenged. So would the child join him here, in the body of his husband?
That sounded like an opportunity to take much needed revenge.
Feeling a little better, Voldemort began to close the safe, only for Nagini to interrupt him.
"You have not seen your mate's portraits."
Ah, yes. He'd meant to look at those. He considered telling Nagini the truth, but dismissed it. If Potter could speak to her, then she may well tell him too, which was something he very much did not need. He had a feeling Potter was an overbearing twat when it came to his spouse's health. Best to keep up appearances.
"Ah yes, thank you for reminding me, my dear." He pet her again, and reached back into the safe, where there was a photo album tucked behind the torture diaries.
After pulling it out, he found the front was plain and unremarkable, almost deliberately so. These were probably wedding photos and other trite romantic things, Voldemort scoffed internally.
He opened the album and—gaped.