All Fall Down

The darkened, dusty room was the most inviting thing he'd ever seen. The smell of mold and illness that drifted all around, the way the only beam of sunlight seemed cut into a thousand pieces by the shadows, the still and the quiet, and the waiting, the air of something, someone holding it's breath, and waiting for the deed to be done. He was safe here, for the only few minutes he needed now to avenge everything, his entire life's work about to cultivate in this one moment.

A glint of light flashed off his silver hand, causing him to flinch away from it involuntarily. No, he thought, staring it down, I will not turn from the light. It's over now, it's all over, the suffering and the pain, he thought, because he will bring me to the eternity I wished for. Yes, it'll all be over soon, but I'll have won. The world may never even know my name, but I'll have won, because I did this, it is my triumph, my purpose, my rebellion against the inevitable.

He inserted a hand slowly into his pocket, leaving it there for a few tense moments before removing it again, clasped around a small leather-bound book, with a large sewn place in the center where a tear appeared to have once been. "I'll have won," he whispered, and cast the book down on the floor, stepping back as a huge puff of putrid green smoke erupted all around it.

"Leverus," he whispered, his hand trembling, from fear, and triumph, and so much fear. "LEVERUS!" He shouted, louder, his voice shaking but his hands steady now, as he raised his wand clutched tightly in his left hand, and pointed it at the book.

An involuntary cry escaped his lips as the entire book caught fire, blazing green and gold in a magical inferno the kind of which he'd never seen before. Instead of melting away in the heat, the book began to lift slowly into the air, then flickered in and out of existence, slowly, then faster, faster, faster until it was a blur of brown and green and black, and then was gone altogether.

In its place stood a tall dark haired boy, somewhere in his teenage years, though the look in his eyes, calculating, sinister, gave him away. This was no boy at all, not by the way he seemed to be laughing at the world in his cruel eyes, no by the way he stood, tall and overbearing, as if he knew exactly everything that was and would be.

"Wormtail..." he whispered, but it wasn't really a whisper, as it echoed around the entire chamber. "So...you have come back to me after all."

"Master!" And Wormtail bowed low, touching his nose to the ground and smiling inwardly and shivering at the same time. "Master..."

The boy smiled, nodded to Wormtail, who stood up, his smile widening, one hand outstretched towards his Master. Raising a hand as if to accept the other, the boy thrust it outwards, a wand appearing there, seemingly out of nowhere. "Avada Kedavra." Wormtail fell face forward, the smile not leaving his face as the life left his body and traveled forward, drifting away into those broken shadows.

"Thank you, Wormtail," the boy said, kicking him aside with one foot as he walked forward. "You've served your purpose now...I always knew you'd come through for me." He raised his head to the window, where the sunlight was drifting in, and scowled. "Now, it's my turn..."

"Tom Riddle's coming, Harry Potter..."