Eternity

Eternal

I met a traveler from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read,

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed,

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

-Percy Bysshe Shelley

1792-1822

Angel City, New America, 2567

The man who had once been known as Lord Voldemort, commander of the infamous Death Eaters, ruler of all the world, sat in a dirty, darkened alleyway in what had once been called Los Angeles.

He looked around wildly, eyes focusing on things that no one else could see. He muttered to himself words that had no meaning to anyone save him, and names that were in history textbooks. "Stand aside, girl..."

His dark hair was long and matted, and his eyes glowed an unnatural red. Those that saw him called him mutant freak, an obvious discard from some illegal genetic experiment. He was shielded from the elements by a flimsy plasboard box he had stolen just before it was incinerated in a garbage dump.

Every person driving by in their cars had heard of him, but none would recognize him now. They spoke of the time when he had ruled the way that people spoke of the Holocaust, as something that everyone agreed had been horrible, a tragedy, but didn't seem quite real, all these years later. They spoke his name now, no longer so afraid that they had to whisper. They all thought he was dead, of course- after all, it had been over a century since his fall from power.

The world had spent that time rebuilding, reinventing shattered technology. It had not been easy, at first, for Muggles to learn to live with wizards, and the other way around. There were much fewer people, to be sure- the Muggle population had been halved, and the wizarding population was a mere one-tenth what it had been.

Pureblood prejudices disappeared as magic folk realized that they could become extint, especially since Muggles were so hostile to them- understandable, considering their first experience with magic folk, and one that had lasted for three centuries, had been horrifying.

But time went on, and children were born, and the reality their parents had lived became less real, and slowly people began to forget.

Hogwarts Ruins, Old Island, Atlantic Ocean, 2692

They knew their parents would be mad at them if they were caught, but that was the trick, wan't it? Don't get caught.

Aiyna bit her lip, looking at the crumbling stone. "Maybe we should go back. This place looks condemmed."

"No way!" her twin brother, Davi, insisted. "We came this far, we aren't going back now." And with that, slid under a piece of stone that had fallen to block where the Great Doors had once been.

It was a closely kept secret that their family had magic blood- in fact all witches and wizards, these days, kept their heritage a secret. Any found with magic were arrested or lynched, victem of fears still remaining from the Voldemort days. Of course, not all norms, as Muggles were now called, hated magic, but a fair percentage did.

Their mother was a norm, one of the ones that accepted magic- they had gotten the magic blood from their father. And their family had another secret, one that would get them not just arrested, but burned alive.

Their family could speak to snakes.

It was said that Voldemort himself had that Dark ability, but it was not from him the were decended.

No, their ancestor was Lily, only daughter of Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. They had had to be careful, their entire lives, never to reveal their secret, for fear that their friends and neighbors would turn on them. It had been known to happen.

Ainya shook these thoughts from her head, following her brother into the castle.

The Riddle House, Little Hangleton, England, 2015

Voldemort stood in his decadent chambers, holding the tiny vial of potion the Severus had worked so had to produce. Thirteen years it had taken him, and at last, at last he would have it all!

He had killed Dumbledore and Potter years ago, and crushed any Resistance the Light tried to put up. He had, in fact, conquered the entire world.

Muggles and wizards alike bowed down to him, Lord Voldemort, ruler of the world! And yet this, this tiny, innocent-looking vial of potion, this was his greatest accomplishment.

He had conquered every living being on the Earth, and now he would conquer Death.

Severus's warning echoed in the back of his head, "Remember my lord, this potion cannot be reversed. Once you have drunk it, you cannot die, even if you want to."

That was ridiculus. Why on Earth would anyone want to succumb to the human weakness of Death? He had waited far too long, sacrificed far too much to be having second thoughts now.

So with one last look at the world that was his, Lord Voldemort, King of Kings, put the bottle to his lips and drank.

Hogwarts Ruins, Old Island, Atlantic Ocean, 2692

Davi and Ainya looked in awe at the huge, hidden room. Columns lined either side, and at the end was a massive statue of a man.

"Wow," Davi whispered. "Look at that. I wonder who he was?"

"Well, the engraving says he's Salazar Slytherin."

"He must have been important, to have such a bit statue."

"Who cares? He's dead and forgotton now."

Finis