Misunderstood

His hollow laugh filled the empty room and his red eyes illuminated the throne on which he sat in the otherwise dark room.

He was sitting at the head of a large, somewhat magnificent chamber. It might have been a ballroom once, in lighter times but now it was dark, cold and altogether uninhabitable. Skulls adorned the walls and a skeleton lay on the floor, seeming to still grovel before the throne.

Strangely, little of the man on the throne himself could be seen although his eyes shone brightly. It seemed as if he was attracting darkness, drawing it out of every last corner of the room towards him. It centered around him, only to slowly spill into the room again, but now it had changed into a cold darkness, a dangerous darkness. It was the kind of darkness that not only frightened little children, but might even frighten some of the mightiest wizards of all times.

The man was something that you could be drawn to, but just as easily you could be frightened by him, so frightened that you could even wish to die, just to flee from his presence.

It was Lord Voldemort, the mightiest wizard alive next to Albus Dumbledore.

"Wormtail, come here," he hissed.

"Yes master, right away," came the squeaky reply of the unobtrusive little man, who had been standing in the corner of the room.

"Get me my pensieve," the older man said quietly. Wormtail flinched at the coldness and at the hardness of his masters voice but scurried off nonetheless, not wanting to provoke his Master by dawdling. Lord Voldemort was not a tolerant master.

Moments later, he returned, a flat basin in his hands, the liquid in it precariously close to swapping over as Wormtail scurried over. Kneeling at his masters feet, he raised the basin, skinny arms trembling, so that his master could gaze into it.

Lord Voldemort bent forward slightly, the darkness that had been surrounding him creeping forward with him.

Reliving his life was not easy for Lord Voldemort. Remembering little of his past, he simply had always put it off as unimportant. His future had seemed far more important. His search for immortality though, had led him to the idea of horcruxes recently. Browsing through his past, he thought might lead him to appropriate objects and most of all hiding places for them. Never would he have imagine what then came to pass, that knowing his past would be his fall.

No one alive could imagine what it must have been like for him, who was known as the cruellest wizard alive to relive a past which was so different from his current life that it seems almost impossible to be true.

After several minutes of reliving his memories, he sank back in to his chair slowly. The darkness didn't follow him anymore, instead it seemed to evaporate together with the unnatural coldness that had filled the room.

"Thank you Wormtail," he whispered, "You may go now."

Dazed by such friendliness from his master, Wormtail tried to get to his feet but stumbled, letting the precious pensieve fall down and shatter into a thousand pieces, the liquid spilling all over the floor.

Wormtail remained lying on the floor, terrified. Dimly he formed a single thought. What would his punishment be? Surely he wouldn't get away with a simple Crucio curse. The sound of a wand swishing through the air made him nearly die of fright but nothing happened that he could discern from his position on the floor.

Tom Riddle was standing, holding his wand in his hand and had just undone the mess his servant had made.

Slowly Riddle fell back into his chair.

"What have I done?" he muttered under his breath, "What have I done."

"Master?" Wormtail ventured, frightened of the consequences of disturbing his master but, never having been the cleverest, still doing so.

"Oh, Wormtail, if you could only imagine," he whispered. "I had wanted to make the world a better place, all those muggles who had made my life so miserable, I thought I should punish them for it, but Wormtail, I remembered something I had long sought to forget."

A silence followed his words, Wormtail, too confused to say anything, was still lying on the floor, as Riddle lost himself in his memories.

Suddenly he spoke again.

"I remember love, Wormtail," he said. "Love, a love so pure that I myself can scarcely believe it. When I graduated from Hogwarts, I set out to learn about the world, to find a way to make my plans come true." He paused again and buried his face in his hands for a while. When he took them down he continued speaking.

"Oh yes, even back then I had wanted to do great things, I was on the path to darkness - I did not want to die and be forgotten, I wanted to be great, even as a youth."

By now, Wormtail was sitting on the floor, gaping at his master, clearly confused and unsure of what to do.

"But then I met a girl. It's always a girl, isn't it? It's always a girl that changes a man's life. Oh yes Wormtail, I was in love. I learned to see things differently and I realised that the world was indeed beautiful. I was happy. She was a half-blood but I didn't even care. But then she was killed, shot by a street gang of muggles. I was devastated. I didn't want to live without her and my hate for muggles began to grow again. I became consumed by it and I couldn't bear to remember her anymore. I Obliviated myself back then. A foolish thing, for my hate stayed with me and I had no reason not to act on it. So act I did."

After pausing he continued to speak, "Strange how far you can stray from the perfect path when you lose your morals. The goal stays but you take the wrong way."

He stood up slowly and tears glittered in his eyes.

"But now I remember," he whispered, "Now I do."

With a sudden power behind his movements he straightened and pointed his wand at his head.

"I wanted revenge for something I couldn't even remember, I wanted it too much, and my greed consumed me."

All of a sudden a green bolt shot out of his wand, just as the words "Avada Kedavra" left his mouth.

Wormtail, still sitting on the floor, watched in awe as his master crumpled in a heap on the floor and a wave of love spread into the room, and into the world.

Miles away, Harry Potter looked up into the sky and felt a sudden wave of love and gratitude wash over him.

Twirling his wand in his hands he smiled.

"So it can be done," he muttered, knowing that months and months of extensive study on memory charms had definitely been worth it, you can remember what you sought to forget. Even a memory charm is not forever, reliving the events will bring it all back.

Still smiling he looked at a picture in at his feet.

A black haired man and a stunningly beautiful woman smiled back at him.