Dark Lord's Lair

Topic #202: Life's a game, who is winning?

2007-11-02T18:41:28Z

To my utmost chagrin, it's quite clear that I am not. Something was missing when Harry and I faced each other on the Hogwarts grounds. Something was missing when he explained the real history of the Elder wand. Harry stood there, full of energy and life and... completion. Somehow, I heard his words but did not consider. In effect, I killed myself with a wand that could not obey me in the hands of my enemy.

And yet I did not die. Or maybe I did. This emptiness where I lurk but know only raises more questions. At times, it is nothing but slate gray around me, and I have to wait through it. There is nothing to do when one has no form, and the scenary around you has vanished. But this emptiness is more often Hogwarts. I can see it being rebuilt. I see portraits painted, awards won, Quidditch played, fear lifted. All in my absence. Far be it from me to deny that I made an impact. After all, they're so happy with my defeat. I do not know if I am a ghost in his early stages or whether death is a far more complicated matter than I had anticipated and feared. All I know is that the emptiness knows my hell, to see but not touch, to know but not act. I hover in the library, in classes, but I know the lessons and the pages like fingerprints. And I can't turn the pages myself, cannot answer in classes that are dumb as a post.

I have not won. I couldn't win. I know that now.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 271 words

Topic #195: What makes someone a hero? What makes someone a villain?

2007-10-06T03:20:26Z

I know perfectly well that I am the villain in this scenario. Mine is a name that people fear. The name Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore inspire hope; my name is rarely spoken, and wisely so. I seek destruction, a revolution, of a flawed system, and I seek it covertly, beyond the realm of law. Maybe one day, that will make me the hero, but until then, I relish my place on a darker side - I bathe in the theatrics. It means that I don't have to pretend what my real motives are, as so many "heroes" do. I don't have to lie, as so many "heroes" do. To throw in the lot with what is considered evil, at least then you know what you are and where you're going. I played the political games long enough - it is too tedious. I waited impatiently for the chance to let my true colors show.

So now I play the villain, and I like it.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 165 words

lordriddle @ 2007-09-15T17:43:00

2007-09-15T22:44:43Z

20 Random Facts about Lord Voldemort, written by mun.

One of the ficlets here inspired it, so I thought it would be appropriate for anyone interested. Also a good exercise, very much like the pup.

Topic #194 - This broken world

2007-09-06T21:02:43Z

I look over the world before me as simple and dry as a drawn map - I see what is and what will be.

In my hands, I see the world laid to waste for my pleasure. My feet walk over the scorched ground and do not burn, for I have been raked over the coals already. I feel neither heat nor cold, I feel neither pleasure nor pain. But I know that my people do - both wizards and Muggles burn at the same temperature, both smell the same when they die. I resolve not to smell of anything but stone. I will rule the earth as I become its son. I hear hell and laugh.

For now, I sit against the trunk of the dead tree in the Master's forest and breathe the thin air. I still need to breathe, I still need. I am still an apprentice in my craft, but I will surpass my Master. He fears me just as his Master did before him. I will be the last taught, I swear it. And I will set the world to burn.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 186 words

Call to most_amazing

2007-08-20T04:49:30Z

In retrospect, he realized it was only luck that kept Hermione from seeing him as he transformed back into his adult form again. That still left him adult-sized, wandless, and shut up in Hermione's house, in her private bathroom. And now Hermione - with an older voice herself - was knocking on his door.

"Tom!" she called. "Whatever de-aged me seems to have worn off. Has it happened to you? Tom?"

Voldemort tucked his open robe around him and quickly fastened it, stalling for time.

Call to named_for_two or anyone else...

2007-08-16T05:24:37Z

This is T. M. Riddle's Diary:

Write in me.

Meme from everyone

2007-08-16T05:22:59Z

Sorry for my inexplicable hiatus. I'll try and stick around more this time.

If you woke up one morning and found me in your bed, what's the first thing you'd think or say?

#190: You've been temporarily turned into a child. What do you do?

2007-08-07T04:39:05Z

I think my pup is going to kill me. Although this is open for my Death Eaters if they'd like to join in, I guess. Or anyone else really. Have fun with tiny!Vols.

This was a nightmare. It ranked about as high as Harry Potter doing the jitterbug over his dead body and having tea with a bagpipe-playing Dumbledore. There was no way that this could be real.

His robes draped over his little arms and spread to all sides of him as though he was melting. His wand too big for his hand, and it took a little more effort to hold it up and steady at the semi-circle of Death Eaters. They knew better than to laugh, but he could see the twists and contortions of amusement. He thought he could die - he finally knew the fate worse than death that Dumbledore had always talked about.

"Silence!" he cried.

But the commanding tone he once possessed had diminished into something not quite as intimidating.

His chubby arms poked out of his sleeves until they fell back to his shoulders with a wave of his wand. "Crucio!"

Nothing happened. Then again, he didn't think it could work with a slight lisp. His two front bottom teeth were gone. Now some of his Death Eaters couldn't help it. Tom Riddle at six years of age was just too cute to seem a threat. Severus walked up to him and patted his head.

"Perhaps this isn't the best time, my lord," Severus said. He did not smile, but it was hard to miss amusement in a man who usually had nothing to laugh about. "Let's get you out of here. I'll help find a countercharm or antidote."

"Crucio!" Voldemort said in a higher voice, pointing at Severus. But nothing came out of his favored wand except a few sparks. Severus knelt down and carefully took Voldemort's wand away.

"We don't know what using your wand in this state can do. I think it would be best if you come with me," Severus said gently.

Voldemort's little bow of a mouth began to tremble. Then, to the neverending but surreptitious rumors that came from the mouths of Death Eaters after the incident, Voldemort wrapped his short arms around Severus's neck and began to cry.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 350 words

lordriddle @ 2007-08-01T03:08:00

2007-08-01T08:09:18Z

*sighs in contentment*

I have a lovely new header. lordriddle

Call out to anyone

2007-08-01T06:15:55Z

This is Tom Marvolo Riddle of the famous diary.

Write in me.

lordriddle @ 2007-07-31T17:51:00

2007-07-31T22:52:21Z

Borrowed from everyone

If you want to have your pup have some sort of sexual relations with mine, comment here! I'll write a drabble makin' it happen! Cause sex + drinking = ALWAYS GOOD. Okay, not always good. But in my imagination there are no alcoholic side effects.

lordriddle @ 2007-07-28T19:34:00

2007-07-29T00:40:48Z

Your Score: SLYTHERIN!

You scored 68% Slytherin, 24% Ravenclaw, 20% Gryffindor, and 12% Hufflepuff!

Or perhaps in Slytherin
You'll make your real friends,
These cunning folk use any means
To achieve their ends.

Slytherins are known for their ambition, guile, and Machiavellian sensiblities.

Link: The Sorting Hat Test written by leeannslytherin on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Those questions were ridiculous. Many of them, I answered as closely as I could because they did not have the scenario I actually would have chosen. At least I stay in my own House, even if I wanted to remove the House system from Hogwarts.

#189: Talk about a conversation when what you said was not what you were thinking

2007-07-28T23:22:15Z

Harry Potter thought I did not know Severus was a spy. The very thought that I would not have known is laughable. Even without the benefits of Legilimency, Snape's loyalties were always questionable. If I could send him to spy on Dumbledore, was it so inconceivable that Dumbledore could send him to spy on me.

Every time he came to me to report the Order's movements or Harry's plans, I sifted through the information, considering it at every angle. I would praise him like an obedient puppy, and he would accept it as though it were due him. One thing that kept me from killing him upon his first bit of treachery was that I knew that he believed in me, even if he sided with Dumbledore. That left me able to suck him dry of his espionage, knowing that he would do just about anything for me except kill the Potter boy.

What a useful little trinket to carry about with me, a little pet on a leash. He was given the circumference of the slack, but he never fooled me. Never.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 183 words

No topic

2007-07-20T23:17:04Z

OOC: Not DH compliant. Only waiting for DH.

This is my goodbye. I know in what is left of my soul that the Potter boy will triumph against me. The woman who decided to write our stories would never let me triumph. The only question remains how the boy will defeat me. Will he destroy my last Horcrux residing in my body? Will he destroy himself to leave the murder of the man to another hand? Will he use the Killing curse to become the man he killed?

One possibility that I had considered possible was the use of a dementor to consume the parts of my soul, which was why I pursued their allegiance with me. Another is to strip me of my magic, although I am unfamiliar with any spell that could do so. Without Dumbledore, who would create such a weapon? I can see the Order furthering Dumbledore's opinion regarding my view of death. They believe that death might be too good for me, even though it is what I fear above everything else. It's a paradox, and one that has filled countless hours. I sit in my chambers and wait for the end, and I cannot hear anything but the sound of my own deathwatch beetle. I cannot help but believe that the boy or another will indeed kill me. I don't know which to fear more.

As long as my name is remembered, I cannot truly die, and I will live on in word if not in deed. In that, at least, I have succeeded. I only wonder if the world will still fear my name when I am dead, as they continued to do when they first believed in my demise. Maybe there was enough doubt for them then, worry that I would return. And I always can return. There are resurrection rites, methods of possession, someone working on the outside to bring me back. That is my only consolation - they can never truly destroy me. I hold on to that thought, close my eyes, and open the book.

OOC: There is no way that after the book, I will quit this pup. Lord Voldemort will live on.

#185: Triumph

2007-07-06T07:39:14Z

There are days when I know that I will triumph over that damned boy. The Order and its mascot are running scared with only recklessness and blind hope on their side - hardly the stuff that victory is made of. There is no question that Harry Potter is no match for me.

Then there are days when I question myself. The prophecy seems so certain that it will be Voldemort against Harry, that he will be my equal, although he never seems up to the challenge. The only thing that keeps him alive is the way the wizarding world surrounds him like a little lost lamb and dumb luck. He couldn't possibly be my true equal. I feel alternately free from and fettered by that prophecy. Does it mean my life or his? Is there any chance at all? That he might win seems ridiculous, and yet stranger things have happened. I have seen Nagini consume a small deer, her mouth open ridiculously wide. Could the Order do so to me? I promise that they will choke if they try. I will not go so quietly.

So I prepare and wait, casting aside my doubts. For I will inevitably triumph.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 200 words

#183: Secrets

2007-06-22T18:41:03Z

Top Ten Things Lord Voldemort Would Never Tell His Minions

1) He is anatomically correct under his robes, and hung like a horse. The last thing he needs is Bellatrix knowing he's actually sexually compatible.

2) When he was young, he did enjoy Muggle cinema, and at times, he misses the magic of the theater.

3) He uses a spell to exfolliate.

4) He is actually very grateful for Wormtail's help. He hopes to spread the reward out over decades so that Wormtail or any of the other Death Eaters don't notice as much.

5) The Muggle dictators had it going on. He's read their works and the works of those who inspired them as well as the respective literature for wizards. He keeps Mein Kampf and the works of Nietzsche (among other things) in his mattress with an Undetectable Charm protecting them from curious and stupid minions.

6) He knows Severus is a traitor. He takes comfort in knowing that Severus is also a traitor to the Order's cause. He tries not to take it personally. But sometimes he fails.

7) When he was young, he only wanted that bunny to love him.

8) He enjoys the attention.

9) Nagini is an excellent cuddler, but something he wishes for a cat.

10) In hindsight, he realizes that Voldemort is a stupid name. But now he's stuck with it, so he makes it as menacing as possible in deed, if not intonation.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 242 words

#178: Mommy/Mummy

2007-05-11T18:00:50Z

OOC: I apologize for my negligence. Things have become so busy and anxiety-ridden that I completely forgot about this.

I hate my mother. She was a weak, disgusting fool of a girl who forced Riddle to marry her with a stupid love spell. Then, although this was the first and only indication of any power and cunning she had, she was naive enough to think Tom Riddle could still love a woman as plain and stupid as she when she decided to remove the love potion from his system. And then she was surprised when his snobbish self left her for a better-looking Muggle woman.

After a man like that left a woman like her, naturally she had to give her only son, whom she had during her last gasping breath, his name and hope that I looked like him. Well, I did at first, and I saw that when I killed my father. But I don't anymore, thank Merlin, and I never will again. I don't think about my mother too much these days. Only that one of my Horcruxes rests in her locket, my one gift to her.

After all, she did bring me into this world.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 180 words

#174. Would you ever kill a human being?

2007-04-19T22:52:34Z

(Is this a trick question?)

I have killed many human beings. I have killed humans, both wizard and Muggle. I have killed beasts through my possession, and Quirrel, who I refuse to acknowledge as human. I have killed myself in my own way. I have killed demons to further my transfiguration. I have killed the innocent and the damned. I have no qualms in killing. One might say that I encourage it.

Even when I was young, what others might call innocent and what I only call ignorant, there were no scruples against the extinguishing of a life. I knew better, certainly. I could see the jail house from the orphanage. But with power comes opportunity, one that I took great advantage of when I no longer had to settle with the strangling of pets.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 135 words

#172: "Who would you choose for your parents?"

2007-04-04T23:27:56Z

I do not remember my parents. I remember an orphanage with dust in the corners and stained rugs. It was not derelict, but neither was it suitable. No one wanted a child, and I was never amenable to leaving under the authority of any set of parents interested in exerting their control over me. I had my own room at the orphanage, the matron had given up on her totalitarian control, and all I had was my name and my power. I thought that was enough.

Then I left for Hogwarts. I was given a larger world, and as a first year, I had no power at all except over those my own age. I was small, Muggle-raised, and in Slytherin - there was no worse way to begin life in Hogwarts, although even then, I knew I was destined for greatness.

When I began to actively search for my ancestry, positive of my family ties to Slytherin - with a voice to tame serpents and a basilisk under my control, who could say otherwise? - I found myself... disappointed. I was positive that the man for whom I was named was the relation to pave the way to Salazar. How could a witch die in childbirth? Even in those times, the magical medical studies were far more advanced and birth was simple. A witch would never die.

But my father's name was in none of the history books, none at all, and I began to face the terrible truth that perhaps my weak mother, instead, gave me my great Slytherin heritage. Who, then, was my mother, and who, then, was my father?

Merope Gaunt: A family of inbred, insane, ugly remnants, like tattered tapestries. My mother, a plain, cross-eyed witch with little magical ability beyond the love potion she managed to create. And for whom? 'There is your Grace's part.' For the rich young man who lived in the village. A Muggle. A snobbish Muggle for whom I was named.

Tom Riddle: He was handsome, and it was as though I looked into a mirror. But I knew there was no magic in that reflection. The very thought I shared a visage with a poncy magicless waste was enough. I swore over my father's dead body that I would shed my countenance. And somehow, I would shed his blood from my body. I would no longer have his filthy blood in my veins.

But what of my mother's family? I took what belonged to me. I took Slytherin's legacy. But I would shed the Gaunts, too. I would remove my parentage entirely.

I want no ancestry. If I had my way, I would have walked from the great Slytherin's forehead in the Chamber, bloody, pale, and pure. When I look in the mirror, that is what I see now, and I am pleased.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 474 words

170. Time

2007-03-24T01:32:25Z

I looked to Professor Dumbledore, and over the years, I watched his auburn hair turn to gray. I always thought the professor was vain about the thickness and health of his long, dead cells, which was why he let himself grow thick and furry with them. I also thought that as the first strands of white streaked through his pride, he would lose the eccentric love of his and try and make it more respectable, more dignified.

Instead, he seemed to gloat with every year his hair grew whiter. I could not help but watch him with something akin to fear, not because he was what might be called my only true enemy, even at seventeen, but because aside from his magnificent power, he was everything I wanted to shed. With every year, I felt my own age like a steadily heavier weight. I silently vowed that I would never become the doddering, wrinkled, senile, eccentric old fool, a persona that Dumbledore seemed to embrace. He always was crazy.

Muse: Lord Voldemort (Tom Riddle)
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 169 words

168. Party

2007-03-09T02:32:47Z

OOC: This is not, in fact, intended to be serious, and it's something of an inside joke between myself and honeybean. So, in her honor...

My Death Eaters gather around the buffet table. I never understood my followers' need to engage in frivolous festivities, but I've learned that happy Death Eaters are productive Death Eaters. For my part, I get to watch them torture homeless Muggles, so I let them have their fancy if I can have mine. I find it unfortunate that such time and energy is wasted, but my followers kiss my robes and invite me to come and lord over them rather than act like their revels are their exclusive domain and one to be ashamed of in my presence.

I suppose we all need a little relaxation now and again.

Ah, celery and ranch. And several lovely bottles of wine from Lucius's cellar. Pardon me.

...

Yesh. I am back to... tell you about teh WONDERFULLY parteh my Death Eatersh put on for MEEEE! Bellatr... Bellatwix... B... Bella danshed on my lap, shee, and fell ashleep on my shoulder. She shnores like... shomething that shnores. And Lushiush and Narcississha... Narsh... hish wife went like bunniesh in front of the petrified corpshesh of the Mugglesh. And DIP!

It wash fun. *hiccup*

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 189 words

167. Write about disappointment or disillusion

2007-03-01T01:36:28Z

It should have been my glorious return. I was never defeated, merely set aside like some out-of-date broomstick, but I would come back greater and more powerful than before. And that boy, the boy who had filled my thoughts for the last thirteen years of hell... he was to be an instrumental part of my ascent.

I should have foreseen the consequences of my theatrics, but I am afraid that I let a dramatic scene feed me as thoroughly as Nagini's poison - I cannot resist, and with enough build among those Death Eaters who had abandoned me at my own hour of need, my return and Harry Potter's death would have been that much more awesome. His dead body would be my greatest gift.

But now, with his blood flowing through my veins and his thoughts in mine, I postured enough to actually let him near that damn Triwizard Cup. Thirteen years of waiting, and I let him go. I can dismiss it before my Death Eaters as the fault of practice, but I cannot dismiss it to myself. I swear, on the bones of my father, the hand of my servant, and the blood of my enemy, I will kill him.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 203

166. Do you believe in ghosts?

2007-02-20T03:00:48Z

There was a time when I shimmered, like the flicker of stars at the corner of your eye that you dismiss as quickly as it goes. There was a time when I was less than a ghost. Ghosts, I'd seen. Ghosts, I'd talked to. Ghosts, as strange as it may sound, I tortured into giving me valuable information.

And now I, Lord Voldemort, the name that no one in the wizarding world dared utter, am but a ghost of a memory, strugging for every second of my survival. I cannot sleep. I have no body to breathe. All I can do is move. Move through those paths through which I once walked in search for a greater body. Now I merely content myself with snakes and rats that get in my way. Their life smothers out of them too easily - a human spirit expends their energy like a breeze against a candle flame. The death soothes me for a while, but then I move on with the currents of air, having had my rest. I will find a body again. I swear that my memory will become flesh.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 189 words

165. Night

2007-02-15T02:37:40Z

He lifted his half-formed face to the moon and let its sharp lines dull his features further. When he looked in the mirror, he could no longer recognize his face - or maybe it was that he finally saw what he wanted to see. Those glowing red eyes dominating the simplistic mask of his features until the truth behind the humanity could be seen in the sea of writhing red serpents. It was no wonder that Dumbledore feared his influence on his students. Without another mask, what was he but the Great Serpent to gather in the impressionable? Dumbledore was right to keep him from them. The old man knew his purpose no matter the guise he presented to the rest of the world - no mask could hide him from Dumbledore's gaze, and the reminder that he would always be Tom Riddle, that damned human form sullied with Muggle blood, twisted his countenance like pliant clay.

Yet as the moon showed him his silvery reflection, he reflected that Dumbledore would surely pay. On this night of refusal, Voldemort struck him down with a thousand.

Muse: Lord Voldemort
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word count: 185 words