Getting Harry Back

Chapter 1

And Thou Profoundest Hell

...and thou profoundest Hell

Receive thy new Possessor: One who brings

A mind not to be chang'd by Place or Time.

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

John Milton

Paradise Lost, Book I

"Crucio!"

With power sucked from the man's writhing and screaming, he caught his breath, regaining much-needed strength.

"How sweet the milk," he thought, "from those best of all magical teats - pain and terror."

His scar had suddenly burned as if his head would burst. And that wound, that damnable wound - its pain, too, exploded. Thankfully, he'd been able to cast the Cruciatus curse, to feed on the pain he, himself, caused. This didn't make his scar and wound pains lessen, no indeed. But it did restore a balance of sorts and, most important, his sense of control, both of which helped dilute the pain's impact.

He suppressed a shudder.

Tom watched the weakening Death Eater, and decided that he, Tom, had recovered enough. "It would, after all, be a pity to lose someone who still had a certain usefulness."

"Well," he thought, "perhaps pity is not quite the word."

He spoke quietly, though clearly: "Finite incantatum."

The Death Eater went limp.

Tom braced himself for the shock of love's pain undiluted. As always when he felt a blast of love through his scar -- his connection with that dratted Potter -- he could feel layers of his power peeled back, his transformations weakened, and that awakened emptiness, that hideous, unfillable emptiness. But since it was now of his timing, it became more bearable, even though his scar burned so that his sight dimmed.

He frowned as he recalled Quirrell's shock when he saw the scar. He saw it when Tom had Quirrell arrange mirrors so that Tom, from the back of Quirrell's head, could look into Quirrell's eyes. "L-like P-p-potter's," Quirrell had stammered. Until then Tom hadn't known about his own head scar, much less Potter's.

"Idiot," he scowled softly, recalling the memory charm he'd used on Quirrell. And while no spell he'd tried so far - and he'd tried countless spells - had removed the scar, he at least had kept it masked.

"M-master?"

Red eyes looked down at the prostrate form.

"W-what have I d-done to d-d-displease my Lord?"

Tom frowned. It was almost too easy to enjoy.

"The Dark Lord," he intoned, "always knows." He watched the Death Eater pale, look shocked, and then shrink in on himself.

"I doubt it's worth the bother of Legilimency," he thought. "Better to let them think that I have other, unknown means."

"Now leave us!" he shouted. "All of you!"

Within seconds the subterranean Great Hall emptied. He was alone in flickering torch-lit silence, and able to attend to the pains.

Tom sighed and placed his silencing wards. He'd found it a relief to speak his mind out loud and unguarded; it helped his thinking. He looked down at the large snake curled around his feet, giving it an embittered smile.

"Ah, Nagini, my faithful Nagini. You alone can I trust."

The snake raised her triangular head, turned toward him, and flicked her tongue, tasting the air for presences and feelings. Tom opened his mouth and breathed in, letting the air move over his own tongue. Fear and pain scents were still strong, though not as tasty, not as nourishing, or as empowering.

With a smile, Tom felt Nagini testing him, probing him for his feelings and weaknesses. He chuckled:

"The curious nature of our trust. I trust you to be exactly as I am, always testing, always seeking out weaknesses to use for my advantage. We understand one another perfectly."

He tested Nagini's feelings and frowned as he caught a faint... interest?

Tom realized he'd been speaking Parseltongue. More and more since returning to his body, just over a year ago, he found himself using snake language, not only for his private speech, but also for his inner speech.

"Perhaps from my disembodied years, so much time spent living in snakes." Though something about that didn't taste quite right.

He enjoyed his shudder, not having to suppress it. Then he smiled again. "Parseltongue has come to feel more native, more akin to the nature of my thoughts."

Then he realized, not with a smile, that he was Tom again.

"Damn that Potter," he said as he stepped back from Tom. This time the shudder, while still not suppressed, was in no way enjoyable.

Ever since that disastrous night at the Ministry of Magic, ever since that Potter whelp had blasted out layers and decades' of painstaking work, he discovered himself more and more slipping back into Tom. That bolt of love, while possessing the boy, had come into him fully: he'd been completely unprotected and unprepared.

Since struggling back to Voldemort, he'd felt these aftershocks, surges of love unannounced and inexplicable. He could tell these surges weren't coming, as they had before, from Potter, but rather from something inside himself, something awakened, something made unstable and insecure. He'd searched his mind and body ruthlessly, but so far had been unable to pinpoint the source, much less change or isolate it. Oh, if only he hadn't possessed that boy.

"I was a fool not to have foreseen it." He grimaced. "All those transformations lost, though not permanently. Never again will I risk possession."

He sighed, shook his head, then searched inside himself for his Voldemort. Finding that seat of cold power and hate, he plunged into it, donning it like skin - no, thicker, like a hide. He felt that coldness seep into his mind and heart, into his scar and wound, then flow through his whole body, encasing Tom and, especially, Tommy.

He felt the letters and with them, the very cells of Tom Marvolo Riddle, once again transform, as he heard himself say:

"I AM LORD VOLDEMORT."

It had been his final transformation.

"Everything since," he thought, now more Voldemort, "has been mere strengthening and developing."

He noticed that Nagini had quit flicking her tongue and had lowered her head. Voldemort opened his mouth again, tasting the air, and caught Nagini's faint sense of.... disinterest, which he interpreted as disappointment at her testing, discovering that his weaknesses were protected, his defenses bolstered.

He smiled. "We know what to expect from each other, don't we?"

Voldemort felt the snake smile in return. As always with their smile-joining, he felt that power somewhere within him, that mysterious power. He'd never quite understood that power, but it always seemed to strengthen him. It even felt as if it were bringing his next transformation.

"My next, perhaps my greatest transformation. The transformation finally placing me beyond death."

He had come to enjoy, to even crave the feel of that power, like a powerful lust or an addiction.

"My favorite vice." He smiled deeply. "This new power."

Then love's pain broke through his temporary walls. Voldemort groaned as he felt that emptiness, Tom's paralysis, Tommy's aching and longing. He closed his eyes and tipped his head back, taking a slow, deep breath while clenching his fists and drawing on years of stored hate and thirst for revenge. As he let out the air, he could feel that hate returning to buffer the love, giving him the space he needed.

It had taken him nearly a month to learn how best, how fastest to return to normal, to full power, control and stability.

"To hang love slowly," he thought with a smile. Painful and time-consuming though it was, nothing worked so well as reliving his transformations.

At least in regards to his scar-link with Potter, there had been no love blasts, making this, for Voldemort, a generally pleasant summer. Which was most fortunate, especially during that first month, his recovery, and even now, with these aftershocks.

"But I cannot depend on its continuing."

Whenever that dratted Potter felt loved or loving, Voldemort felt it surge through their link. He'd felt this somewhat even in his disembodied state. But it had become immeasurably worse since that night in the graveyard, after he'd used Potter's blood to return to his body. While that had broken the barrier between them, Potter's mother-shield, it had come at a cost, an unexpected cost, with elements still unexplored, even puzzlingly out-of-reach.

Voldemort sighed. "But at least there've been, since that time, few love attacks. Especially this summer." Voldemort's good summer, he knew, meant Harry's loveless summer.

"How sad," he chuckled mirthlessly, "how terribly sad."

Voldemort felt his and Nagini's internal smiles join and strengthen. Again, with their joining, he felt that mysterious power grow within him.

"Ah well, enough pleasantries." He raised his wand: "Incipite transformationes."

Voldemort felt his body and mind split, most of it drawn into reliving his young life, only a small portion staying Voldemort, observing, absorbing, in control. As always, he began at the beginning, as Tommy:

..........

Tommy, perhaps a year old, felt alone in a cot, a cot in a long line of cots. He felt the aloneness of all the other babies, too, compounding his aloneness. He always felt other babies' feelings...

..........

"Now so useful, making me a superior Legilimens," Voldemort thought. "But then...."

He allowed himself another full shudder and returned to reliving the memories:

..........

That line of cots, that whole room screamed loneliness, emptiness, surging and ebbing --each baby's heart-need building and building until it cried out, and went unheard, falling silent and lost, only to begin again its terrible cycle.

Again and again and again and again. Lived out in each lonely cot.

Tommy was defenseless, not only against living out his own cycle, but also against feeling and living out the cycles of the other babies. So for him, for baby Tommy, it never stopped, there were no breaks. He lived submerged in an ocean of deep and aching loneliness.

Such a relief when he felt the cycle in a cot quicken, then burst and fade into peaceful nothingness, sadly beautiful like the dying of a star. Afterwards some worker, who felt to Tommy emptier than nothingness, would come and mutter, "Faylor t'Trive. Faylor t'Trive."

..........

Voldemort chuckled, "Failure to thrive."

..........

The worker would leave, and another would come and take the now-quiet baby away.

When Tommy got to see the baby as it left, he saw that it looked as it felt: peaceful.

Tommy had always wondered when it would be his turn, when Faylor t'Trive would come to him and bring him peace, when Faylor would take him away. He so wanted to be taken away. Anywhere would be better than here.

Tommy had quickly learned, however, that Faylor's coming wasn't fair. Often Faylor came to babies who were younger or who had just arrived, and they got to leave while Tommy had to stay. Tommy never figured out how he could get it to be his turn.

More and more as he got older, Tommy longed not for some worker to come - that was useless; anyone coming would be empty. He longed for Faylor to come, he longed for her to give him that peace she gave to those other babies.

Tommy wondered whether, if he were good enough, or quiet enough, or wished hard enough, maybe Faylor would come. Faylor seemed to come to babies when they faded into quietness. But Tommy could never make himself quiet enough.

He figured maybe it was because he was bad. That's why Faylor never came: he was bad. He felt ashamed of being bad. But he didn't know how to be good.

So whenever he felt a baby fading, Tommy got up and watched and listened, trying to see how to be good enough to get Faylor to come. But he never figured it out. Eventually, he decided he was so bad that, on his own, he couldn't get Faylor to come.

Then Tommy figured even if he was bad, maybe when Faylor came to another baby, if he could get Faylor's attention, perhaps she would come to him, too.

Now even more when Tommy felt a baby fading, he got up and watched, trying to see Faylor, trying to get her attention, to get her to take him away. But he never saw her. It was always other babies who got Faylor to come, who got taken away.

Yet Tommy never gave up hope. Mostly because it felt so good imagining Faylor coming for him. Tommy could feel his heart warm at his picture of Faylor coming just for him. He could see her smile, her long dark hair, and her eyes - that most of all - her vivid blue eyes looking at him, really seeing him. Eyes that smiled when he smiled, eyes that saddened when he was sad, eyes that felt into him, into his heart, and showed him who he was, and showed him that he was loved.

Tommy knew he needed those eyes. He knew those eyes were out there, somewhere. If he could only find them, if he could only get them to come....

Tommy felt his whole body warm when he imagined Faylor picking him up and holding him. Not like the workers who, when they touched him, their hands felt empty and not-there, and they made Tommy feel even more empty and not-there, too. Hands empty and not-there were worse than no hands at all. Tommy wondered what was wrong with him that those hands were always not-there for him.

But when he imagined Faylor touching him, holding him, rocking him....

Her hands were always there, so warm and there. Even if he was bad, she was warm and there. And just like he knew that he needed those eyes, he knew with all his infant's heart that he needed those hands, their touch, their holding. Maybe those eyes and that holding would make him good. Because he, Tommy, didn't know how to make himself good. He needed Faylor to teach him how to be good. He so wanted to be good....

..........

Voldemort felt tears on his face, tears he could mask but not stop, tears he could hate but must feel. He also felt Tom and, especially, Tommy within his body, straining to break through. He knew that would be a disaster. It had happened several times, before he learned to relive his transformations, before he rebuilt his walls.

"Ah, the pain.".

A pain that never nourished. Not like the pains he inflicted on others, which were so deeply satisfying. Nor even like pains he occasionally inflicted on himself when others weren't available. Those self-pains kept him going in a minimal sort of way, like small packets of survival food in lifeboats.

But this pain, it was indigestible, even poisonous. It dissolved his every wall, his every hardness and coldness. It left him empty, powerless, shamed.

Voldemort looked at the shadow-filled empty Hall, with its bare stone walls and floors. He wished, not for the first time, that he could skim over this worst, this most painful part. But he had tried that, and found the results... wanting. This pain, he'd discovered, was like Tommy - foundational to him, Voldemort. Without this pain, without Tommy, Voldemort could never truly be.

He brought his attention back to reliving the transformations:

..........

The faceless workers with eyes that weren't there, by their non-looks and their touchless touches, told him over and over that he wasn't a Tommy, that he wasn't an anybody. He was a nothing who shouldn't be there, who was bad for being there. He could see it in those not-there eyes and feel it in those untouching touches.

To them, Tommy knew in his heart, even if not in his mind that he was just an annoyance in an ill-paying, overwhelmingly impossible job, a job that turned babies into nothings, that turned workers into nothings, workers and babies who weren't there, who weren't real, turned into obedient nothings.

..........

"How ironic," Voldemort said, "that this very process has become most useful to me in my life's work."

"Before anyone can do the overwhelming and the impossible, I must first make them nothing. Only then will they be obedient and trustworthy. Fear and self-interest, while more entertaining, are inherently unreliable."

He smiled, using his hard, mask-like smile to reinforce his walls, though it didn't stop or even slow his tears, the tears of his Tommy-heart. That smile could only hide those tears from others.

Voldemort brought his attention back to reliving:

..........

All that kept Tommy alive and real were the all-too-real, endless cycles that screamed around him -- reaching out from loneliness only to fall into nothingness, then painfully starting again their infant Sisyphusian labors. (1)

These labors, they were hell, profoundest Hell. And more - not just these labors, but these babies were, themselves, that Hell. Over and over, each baby a living and inescapable Hell.

Tommy, too. Not only being his own Hell, but also the cotted Hell of all these babies. Over and over. Over and over again.

* * * * * * * * * *

A dungeon horrible, on all sides round

As one great Furnace flam'd, yet from those flames

No light, but rather darkness visible

Serv'd only to discover sights of woe,

Regions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace

And rest can never dwell, hope never comes....

John Milton

Paradise Lost, Book I

* * * * * * * * * *

He felt himself un-becoming Voldemort. There was nothing he could do, nothing at all. He could only feel himself slipping into that painful, netherworldish Hell.

He closed his eyes and moaned. All masks, all walls and protections fell away, slamming him against Tommy's agony, Tom's horror, Voldemort's fury. He concentrated on survival, on naked and primitive control. If he could not yet re-become Voldemort, or even Tom, he knew he must not, he must not become Tommy. Even what he felt now was better than that, far better.

He felt himself wishing for death, he of all people.

"But then that's why Voldemort. At least one reason. Death is my wish, Voldemort my survival."

"And my revenge."