Bohemian Rhapsody

moment thirty-four: the winner takes it all (August 8, 1981).

Voldemort sat, squalid, watching the fawning sycophants of followers who paraded in front of him with stories of their kills. He felt nauseous, and limited by the spectacle. The faces taunted him, with their gloating and insipid devotion. They lusted after power, and saw him as the most desirable way of achieving it.

They were punch-drunk on their own deviousness, on the thrill of their chase, the scent of blood on their skin. In a sense, it was his fault - he had bought them to his cause with dreams of glory, and he should have known that their dreams would blind them even then. And he was under no illusion of what they saw when they looked at him. He could barely remember what he used to look like, back when he was merely Tom, except he knew this could not be it. Hair, long turned grey and brittle. Skin, pale and wrinkled, peppered with liver spots. Eyes, the green hue consumed by a dark crimson. He looked old, old beyond his years; he was barely fifty, and already Time clawed at him, dragging him down and ravaging his body because it knew he could not die.

Voldemort would endure a living agony as his form decayed and he was refused release. He knew that nature would turn against him, the unnatural, and so he had prepared. Ixiptla he had created, when no-one had even attempted such a thing in five hundred years, let alone succeeded. Even the Mexica themselves had been wary of using that ceremony, too afraid of the potential backlash. What backlash did he fear, he who already defied Heaven, and brought bloody vengeance to God's creation? Yet still Time clawed at him, Time and the uncertainty of fate.

The fools in front of him were too busy wondering about the next attack, or the petty glories of murder and theft to consider the wider perspective. They would sate themselves in the borrowed finery of the world; gold, and possessions, and power. The Death Eaters followed him because they believed that in his brave new world they would be the ministers and judges, lords temporal upon all they surveyed. True, he had promised them such power, if only because that was all their petty, narrow little souls understood. But he had greater plans. He would not be satisfied with merely changing the names and faces who ran the world; he had to tear the world down around him, break the structures it was founded upon and remake it in his own image.

But there was always the threat of failure. That prophecy haunted him. He had split the couple apart that was certain, and both were now married, with families of their own. Yet there was always the threat of renewed acquaintance, even if both James and Lucius were too proud, too stubborn, to consider it now. There was only one way he could be certain that Potter or Malfoy would not be able to align and destroy him, as was foretold. It would be difficult. The Potters had been minor targets for some time, due to the woman's Auror status and their own close affiliations with Dumbledore. So far, they had escaped. But they couldn't run forever, and he had many weapons to array in the fight.

Voldemort gestured with a crooked finger over to one of his brood, and summoned him before the throne. The cloaked figure bowed rather ornately, and Voldemort reminded himself to have this one killed at some stage: he didn't need people consumed by their own self-importance flooding the ranks. Well. He didn't need any more, anyway. "Get me Pettigrew," he murmured, his voice sounding like ash. The Death Eater disappeared amongst the similarly attired brethren, presumably padding down the warren-like corridors in order to see if Wormtail was here, or if he would need to be summoned to their Lord.

Pettigrew would give him the latest information regarding the happy family - the man was so inane sometimes. Did Voldemort need to know that baby Harry was teething now? No! But he would be told such things anyway. Then, he would choose a time to strike. In order to eliminate the prophecy, he would have to make sure there could no further rapprochement. Which meant that one of them would have to die, and he still had a use for the Malfoys.

Voldemort sat on his decaying throne, and wondered if the Potters would scream when he killed them.