Sweetness Follows

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Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine...::sob:: Neither is the song, that belongs to REM and all respective companies. ::doublesob::

Sweetness Follows

-MM-

~*~

Readying to bury your father and your mother,
what did you think when you lost another?

He walked down the darkening corridors, his feet barely making a sound as he padded over the stone floor. As they had done with greater and greater frequency, he found his thoughts wandering back to his parents.

He tried to recall a face, a touch, a voice, anything to try and bring them back to life. Nothing. For a moment, he wished he had been old enough to remember them before they died, but it was impossible. And if he had, who knew? Maybe he would have been strong enough to prevent their deaths, but more that likely he would have shared their fate instead. Or, best case scenario, the few vague memories he had would be sharper and more clear, serving only to increase his pain.

They had died when he was too young to even walk, too young to understand the finality of death. Too young to even begin to grasp the vastness of eternity, the meaning of forever.

Sometimes he saw the lack of memory a blessing he had been too young to understand. He felt their loss keenly as any normal boy would at the death of his parents, but it was more of a dull ache in his heart that wasn't even there most of the time. Just when he thought about it. He didn't grieve their deaths so much, because he had nothing of them to lose. Blurry visions, half memories and that was all.

The Dursleys hadn't helped, either. The Potter name was never spoken in that house, and Harry became a burden and a rat, something to be tolerated only until a way was found to get rid of it. There had been no loss in that house when his parents had died, nothing but a muted sigh of relief, a prayer of thanksgiving. That from the family of his mother's own sister. It was unfair how those people could have been there, known his parents and then to deny the gift they were given, while he, the one who would have given anything to know what they shunned, was left with nothing but a yearning. He fumed at the unfairness of it all. Then again, no one ever said life was fair.

I, your son, don't even have a single clear memory of you, he thought as he walked. There are dozens of people out there who know you better than I do. I was famous before I could walk, before I could say my own name others were shouting it across the streets as they rejoiced. You and I are famous, but for what? Nothing that I wouldn't give away just to have you back again.

I am the Boy-Who-Lived.

Why couldn't you as well?

I used to wonder why did you bother,

distanced from one, blind to the other

.

He laid her out gently on the ground, spread limply as if though in slumber. He remembered a time when he had seen a similar thing done, first by human hands as his mother was laid to rest in the cold, unforgiving ground, then thrice more as his beloved father and grandparents fell, crushed by the hand of magic.

Neither memory disturbed him now, although he still retained some bittersweet flavoring of triumph in the latter. Never liked magic, father? Well, I gave you a reason not to, didn't I?

It had been satisfying, to say the least. While he hadn't been able to save his mother, he considered her avenged as her husband's body fell to the ground as cold as her own. It was the look on their faces that finally stilled the erratic beat in his heart, the look of sheer terror as the knowledge sank in that the pale boy in dark robes was really the man who would open the door to eternity for them.

He was too young to remember his mother for she died long before his memories began. Something told him that there was something missing, some level of comfort, a memory of warmth and love that simply was not there. In time, however, the feeling faded as had so many others. He didn't even notice when it disappeared, one day it simply wasn't there. One more loss to add to his growing list.

His father's death he felt more, and well he should, for his was the hand that delivered the reckoning. He whispered no prayer over his body, sang no requiem. He left them dead on the ground without ceremony, without rites. What words of peace did they deserve, after all? The man who abandoned his wife and unborn child because of a power that neither of them could control, the parents who had raised the boy to believe magic anathema. No, he would shed no tear for any of them, sing no hymn. If he could, he would have carved his own epitaph on his father's grave, damning the man whose name he had inherited if nothing else. Written over the bones of the father, chipped into the stone with magic's immortality.

She lived long enough to burden me with your name, and the name of your father before you. She loved you to the end, the fool. Both of you, fools. Would that I were born to another family, one that did not bring shame to the name of my ancestor, Salazar Slytherin. Would that I had the strength to carve my last words to you, who never once called yourself my father, though I bore your name like a stone about my neck.

Tom Marvolo Riddle.

I am Lord Voldemort.

Listen here my sister and my brother,

what would you care if you lost the other?

His parents had left him without siblings, an only child on his own in the world. Not that there had ever been a chance; his father had left before he was even born, and his mother died too soon after. It was hopeless from the start.

Still, he was left with so much more than his parents had ever given to him. He created his own family, built his own empire up around him, springing miracles from barren ground. His lips twisted into a cruel smile as he stared at the limp body lying before him on the rocky ground.

Little sister, dear little sister in crime. Bound to me through no will of your own, still it was you who helped me to stand where I do now, waiting for him. Stronger than blood, those ties are. Stronger than law, stronger even than love, they are the bonds of circumstance, of my genius. You have become so wound up in this tapestry of deceit that I doubt you will ever truly be free of it. You and I have shared more than words through that journal of mine, we shared souls, beings, cores. You let me in and I took from you more than you will ever realize. You became part of me, and I will reside in you until the day you die. A sister, you are she...

But there was more to come, much more. He waited in silence, without a sound save for his own beating heart. So soon, now. It was so close. Soon the final member of his patchwork "family" would be arriving. No mother, not father, but brother, sister, self. His brother in arms, perhaps? He liked the sound of that. They could have done great things together, the two of them, if only he had been Sorted into Slytherin. What grandiose schemes they could have carried out! Between their powers, their intelligence, the world was at their feet. If only...

You are more like me than you realize, Harry Potter, he thought as he fingered a strand of her bright red hair. You just won't admit it. Your mother slain by the hand of Thomas Marvolo Riddle, so was my own. Our fathers, too, though the circumstances were different. We are where we are now because of the hatred of our families for our kind. We are one, Harry Potter, you and I are the same being. Perhaps one day you will admit that.

I always wondered why did we bother,

distanced from one, deaf to the other

.

He felt the fear grip his heart as he descended into the gloom. He was leaving his friend back there; more than that, he was leaving his family. Ron, Hermione, they meant more to him than the Dursleys ever could. They were there for him, there with him, when everyone else was gone. He depended on them and they leaned on him in return. It was like a pyramid of leaning slabs, they all supported each other, but when one was jarred the entire structure collapsed.

So what was he doing, leaving their warm circle of protection and hurling himself at Merlin knew what down in the depths beneath the castle? A Chamber of Secrets, yes, but what secret that was so terrible that it must be kept even from the most dear of friends? What could possibly be important enough to risk life and limb alone and without companionship? What could even come close?

Something could, that was certain. Because of that something, Hermione was laying still as death back in the Hospital Wing. Because of that something, Ron and Percy, Bill, Charlie, Fred and George were counting on him to get their sister back. Their true family.

But where did he fit into it all? How could he compete with a love like they had for each other, like Hermione had for her parents? How could he even know what it felt like, having never had someone to feel that way for?

He knew, though. He knew where he belonged, knew where he stood when it came down to the blood, bone and marrow. He knew exactly how much his friends meant to him, and how much he meant to them. He knew he could stand without shame beside Ron in the Weasley clan, could offer comfort to Hermione when her parents couldn't be there. He knew because if it were any other way, he would not be where he was now, not heading ever deeper into the darkness that held an unspeakable secret. It was because there were some ties that ran deeper than bone, meant more than blood. And it was those ties that would send him to death and back to save the only people who had ever meant anything to him.

Oh- oh- but sweetness follows

.

It's these little things, they can pull you under,

Live your life filled with joy and wonder

.

I always knew this altogether thunder

was lost in our little lives

.

It was getting darker now, as he continued to make his way down the slippery corridors. All around him was the hissing, the muted sibilants that haunted dreams he hadn't even known he had. He wanted to hiss back at them, to tell them to go away but he didn't dare. He would never let himself become like any of them, not Voldemort, not Salazar, none. He was himself; he was Harry Potter, son of James, son of Lily, Gryffindor, not Slytherin. He murmured silent prayer as he walked, praying for his parents to watch over him now, to help him, protect him so that he could return to his friends. So he could live to see the light again.

As he walked, he found that a change was stealing over him. The halls grew darker, narrower, but the dark seemed less menacing than it had just moments earlier. The dripping of water was no longer eerie, but soothing in its steady rhythm. The sinister hissing faded away as he found his strength again. The doubts and misgivings he had when he first started down had begun to ebb, leaving him with a lightness that he hadn't known since he was a young boy. And as he walked, he realized that he was on longer afraid.

The corridor ended, and he found himself standing in the middle of a large cavern. He knew instinctively that he was somewhere deep below the castle's foundation and shuddered as it occurred to him that he was the first person to step foot in the Chamber in years. His thoughts were quickly amended as he caught sight of a strand of fiery red hair, a familiar face. Ginny.

He knelt down beside her, knowing it was futile but he had to try. She was cold and limp on the ground, neither moving nor reacting to his touch. Wake up, he urged silently as a chill sank down on them both. He was aware of things moving behind him, hidden by the dark. Wake up! The things were growing closer with each second, and he knew he had little time before-

"She won't wake."

He spun around at the sound of the soft voice and found himself face to face with a young boy slightly older than he, handsome and proud, straight backed and unbending. As Harry stared into the dark green eyes boring into his own, he realized with a start that he was no longer afraid. Though it may mean his death, he would face this boy down here, throw his powers back in his face.

He was not afraid.

It's these little things that can pull you under,

live your life filled with joy and thunder

.

Yeah, yeah we were all together

lost in our little lives

.

So it's time now, is it? Harry Potter. I've been waiting for you, and now that you have arrived, it is almost anticlimactic. A disappointment. You're so- ordinary. You're the one I've been waiting for all this time? And yet I should have known- I've seen you before, you see. At least, one part of me has seen you. Terribly confusing, isn't it; all this age mixing and all the whole mess one gets when one decides to muck about with immortality. But I digress...

It seems almost a shame to desecrate this place so lovingly and caringly constructed by my own ancestor. The first insult to his name was my own parents. Worthless fools the both of them. Now you, intruding on the greatest triumph of my history, such a normal looking boy. I'm almost insulted that they could ever think someone like you capable of opening the Chamber. But not so normal, as I had found, not so defenseless as you first seem. But what of now, with no mother to protect you, no friends to run for help? Will you live up to your name, your reputation? I have waited so long for this moment, Potter. So long. Don't disappoint me now...

Tom Marvolo Riddle, called Voldemort, called Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, stepped out from the shadows. He watched the boy's futile attempts to revive the girl before he knew he had to put and end to it all, to finish what had been started so many years ago.

"She won't wake..."

Oh- oh- but sweetness follows

.

Oh- ohhhh- the sweetness follows

.