Tom had always been afraid of dying. None of the other students at Hogwarts understood, they had never heard the screaming wail of the air raid sirens, never felt the stabbing pain of hunger as the orphanage went one meal short for the tenth day in a row, never felt the cold dread as the gangs of overly patriotic young girls roamed the streets pinning white cowards feathers to men out of uniform, shaming the masses into enlisting, cheerily sending them to their graves. But they would learn, or so Tom thought, a man named Gellert Grindlewald had come and it seemed he would change things. Then just as it seemed Grindlewald was poised to win, Hogwarts transfiguration professor Albus Dumbledore came out of nowhere and fought a duel to change the world. Dumbledore won, and Grindlewald lost, and with him Tom lost all hope of making them all understand.
Tom could feel it, every night in the quiet and silence his heart would seem to still, a gaping maw of absolute nothingness would rear up within him. It never moved, it never made a sound, but in the deafening silence Tom could feel himself slipping away. The dawn would come and chase it away, and Tom would fill his days with desperate activity, he would work long into the night, desperate for anything as an excuse to avoid the stillness. In time his schoolwork ran dry, so Tom turned to other things, his desperate search for something to occupy his thoughts and fill his mind would entrance him until he collapsed from exhaustion, his dreams inevitably filled with the dead-numbing cold. And he would wake, and do it all over again.
Each year he would return to the orphanage in the shabby part of London, but then one year just after he turned fifteen there was a rash of illness, Tom never caught it but those around him withered. While Tom stayed strong, fueled by his magic, the others faded away until eventually Billy Stubbs succumbed to the cold. It was at Billy’s funeral that Tom first put a name to the cold stillness of his nightmares, he recognized it in the air as they lowered the closed box into that damnable pit in the graveyard, death.
Tom couldn’t die, he knew he would eventually, he was human, mortal. “All men die”, they’d say, “the trick is to make sure you really live.” but Tom didn’t think that was true. What did it matter if you really lived when one day all you were would cease to be? What did it matter how good a man you were, how many kids you had or what impact you had on society when none of those things was enough to save you from the cold grasp of the grave? Tom couldn’t die, he’d find a way. They’d told him to live, so Tom would live forever.
He started with alchemy, they said that Nicholas Flamel had found a way to extend his life forever, but the man was withered and frail, his body long since worn to dust, his presence in the world unnaturally extended past its time. Tom recoiled from that thought, he wouldn’t die but he wouldn’t live either. He turned next to necromancy, his studies yielded little, no magic could truly bring back the dead, and he had no interest in ghosts or memories, pale imitations of the life they echoed. Soul magic was next, and there he found his first answer. He was running out of time, Dumbledore was growing suspicious of him and his research was being limited. A favor, a bribe, a box of pale yellow crystals and he had his solution. It wasn’t perfect, it would only buy him time, but time was what he needed. A bit of blood was next, blood born, blood shed, his anchor secured.
He delved ever deeper into magics lost and forgotten, banished and erased, mistaken and destroyed. He was confident at first, surely he was not the only one to have such lofty ambitions? But in time his hope waned. His anchors expanded, his power grew, his knowledge increased. But it was in vain. He needed more. He drew followers about himself, sycophants and slaves, allies and advisors, all came to him, all kneeled. They pledged themselves to him, in this life and the next, they gave him their knowledge, their power, their resources. His hope was rekindled, and it was extinguished once again. He found nothing. War broke out, he needed and his servants wells had run dry, so he took by force what he did not have. It seemed he would win, but then fate itself stood in his way. A prophecy, a child, an enemy to be destroyed. But his power failed him, his body failed him, his foresight did not. His anchors held fast and his spirit clung to the earth, but as he danced the cliff edge between reality and eternity the turn of the universe was revealed to him, for in the place between life and death time is but a little thing. He gazed back into the lost beginning, and forward into the grinding end. He saw the scope of the universe, and in the silent whirl of the void he found his answer. The flesh had failed, the spirit would last. A vision formed, one far brighter than any sun, a throne would be made, a tabernacle for his spirit, a crown of defiance against the ages. He would bend the stars to his will, the earth, the seas, the heavens, all would kneel. As he fled from the place that should have spelled his death, Lord Voldemort cast off the last of his humanity, he had no need of it. For years he had pursued fleeting life as if it held the answers he sought, now he knew life must be ground to heel. But he could wait, he had time. Patience always was the greatest weapon of gods.
Important Conversations
Valirys Reinhald: Hey <@!741989405429989437>, what are your thoughts on my <#735707226332725258>?
DavidtheAthenai: Let me take a look, mate
L3dpen: if i may give my 2 cents, that's dark af
L3dpen: i don't see a particular goal to it though, like what the plot of the story would be beyond just a black hole of evil consuming a small chunk of the galaxy
DavidtheAthenai: The plot would be the character growth of Voldemort
DavidtheAthenai: Those few paragraphs already make all of canon make more sense (Except for the very last bit, obviously)
L3dpen: character growth snerk
L3dpen: growth for sure, character maybe ;D
DavidtheAthenai: I don't get it
DavidtheAthenai: Then of course, most of the POV would have to shift away from the now abstract voldy and show his effects on the world
DavidtheAthenai: his influence
Valirys Reinhald: I actually figured that the story would end there.
DavidtheAthenai: from here on out it would have to be decided if voldemort would succeed or he would be thwarted
Valirys Reinhald: the prompt is a sort of synopsis of the plot
Valirys Reinhald: I figure it would be an interesting story, as Humans we can all instantly sympathize with the fear of dying, and as humans we can all be invested in someone overcoming the one thing we all must submit to. It would be incredibly dark, but I feel like it would be compelling nonetheless. We watch as Tom Riddle grows from a very human young boy into a monster, his humanity giving way to his fears. In the end he abandons all that makes him good, but he also finally has the catharsis of conquering the one thing that held him back. The reader gets pulled along by this journey of darker and darker hues before eventually all seems lost as Voldemort is defeated, but in the end we see that he is liberated.
Valirys Reinhald: A man fights God, and the man wins.
DavidtheAthenai: I really like it as a deep exploration on Tom's persona
DavidtheAthenai: It would be both novel, interesting and would add flavour to the world as a whole
Valirys Reinhald: if you take Tom's story out of moral context it becomes the tale of the ultimate struggle to overcome the limitations of Mankind, and succeeding.
Valirys Reinhald: all it costs is his own humanity
DavidtheAthenai: like I said, just reading that gives Voldemort a depth of character that he lacked in canon
Ajax: For the small price of 4.99, and your soul
DavidtheAthenai: Yes he was afraid to die, big deal. We all are
DavidtheAthenai: and we still do stupid shit that can get us killed
DavidtheAthenai: What makes tom different?
DavidtheAthenai: What makes his fear greater?
DavidtheAthenai: Why is it such a driving force in his life?
Valirys Reinhald: That's the thing, that fear is so flippant and pointless only because we know there isn't anything we can do about it. But just imagine, what if there was something you could do about it.
DavidtheAthenai: This story would explore that
Valirys Reinhald: Seriously consider it, if you found a way, a chance, a possibility that made inevitable death suddenly seem escapable, wouldn't it completely redefine the way you view your own life?
L3dpen: i don't really see that
DavidtheAthenai: I wouldn't. The cost would surely be so high that the reasons I love life would be turned asunder under it. And then, why would I want to live?
DavidtheAthenai: But I am not Tom Riddle
L3dpen: as david said, there's lots of stuff we can do every day to lengthen our life expectancy, and don't cause
L3dpen: well, it's far off
Valirys Reinhald: Wouldn't it change how you view others? When everyone is just another grain of sand in the hourglass its easy to treat them as equals, but when they will eventually fade to dust and be forgotten, when even the universe itself doesn't care to know their names, why should you care either? You found a way to escape the end, when time itself runs out and death dies too, they won't matter, but you will. And if you manage to escape that, if anyone manages to escape that, doesn't that justify any cost to get there? If a man can outlive death, if a man can survive past the end of all things, then don't they act as a legacy of all those that didn't? Would you not be justified in sacrificing a dying world if it meant even a single part of it would live on forever?
DavidtheAthenai: That's the interesting think. Were that story to be written, and written in the best way it could be, everyone would gain a new appreciation for the whole conflict of and with Voldemort on canon. It would certainly change the way those readers would approach FF later. But almost nobody would sympathize with Voldemort. And that, my man, is beautiful
DavidtheAthenai: > Wouldn't it change how you view others? when everyone is just another grain of sand in the hourglass its easy to treat them as equals, but when they will eventually fade to dust and be forgotten, when even the universe itself doesn't care to know their names, why should you care either? you found a way to escape the end, when time itself runs out and death dies too, they won't matter, but you will. and if you manage to escape that, if anyone manages to escape that, doesn't that justify any cost to get there? If a man can outlive death, if a man can survive past the end of all things, then don't they act as a legacy of all those that didn't? Would you not be justified in sacrificing a dying world if it meant even a single part of it would live forever? <@!478424372307296256> A legacy is given its worth by those who uphold it. A legacy cannot exist in emptiness
Valirys Reinhald: But it is not empty, it's you.
DavidtheAthenai: I cannot imagine anything more terrible than living suspended in nothingness, alone with only my thoughts forever
Valirys Reinhald: Neither can I to be frank, but for Voldemort it might be worth it.
DavidtheAthenai: From my point of view, he would have given himself the very future he dreaded
DavidtheAthenai: Death is... ending
DavidtheAthenai: That would be living in oblivion
Valirys Reinhald: > I cannot imagine anything more terrible than living suspended in nothingness, alone with only my thoughts forever <@!741989405429989437> And who knows, maybe that's why God made you and me.
DavidtheAthenai: > Neither can I to be frank, but for Voldemort it might be worth it. <@!478424372307296256> That's what I meant before. That's the beauty of it
Valirys Reinhald: Voldemort is a god by then, maybe the world plays out anew with Voldemort setting the stage
DavidtheAthenai: No person would sympathise with Tom, but all would understand. His struggle would be so much more real
DavidtheAthenai: > Voldemort is a god by then, maybe the world plays out anew with Voldemort setting the stage <@!478424372307296256> As I understood it, he had no more power than before. He was a god only in the sense that he was eternal
DavidtheAthenai: > <@!741989405429989437> And who knows, maybe that's why God made you and me. <@!478424372307296256> That is a great though to mull over for a religious person
Valirys Reinhald: > <@!478424372307296256> As I understood it, he had no more power than before. He was a god only in the sense that he was eternal <@!741989405429989437> I dunno, maybe he is maybe he isn't. Maybe just surviving is enough to make it so.
DavidtheAthenai: Is the reason for existence merely the desperate loneliness of another that was before
Valirys Reinhald: Although honestly, from a religious perspective the whole universe is entirely composed within the being of the omnipotent God, he basically just thought us up. Voldemort wouldn't need any special power to imagine a world in his own head, nor any special power to have divinity in his own thoughts. He would just need to exist.
Valirys Reinhald: ...
Valirys Reinhald: damn, this got philosophical
Valirys Reinhald: I like it
Valirys Reinhald: means it was a good prompt
DavidtheAthenai: I like that implication too
DavidtheAthenai: How detailed can be the thoughts of a being that knows not sleep nor death? A being that casted away what he was in search of something that he found at last when the time was past. An eternal loneliness biting at a heart too proud to refuse that in victory he found his fear realized. A thing whose sanity was lost by a stern refusal of the situation that was now his reality, who would create as a way to escape his ineffability
Valirys Reinhald: We must imagine Sisyphus happy, all else is too much to bear.
DavidtheAthenai: shivers
DavidtheAthenai: This could honestly a beautifully realized story, a deep exploration of character, not really growth, but a dissection of the flaws of a man with too much power and as many fears
DavidtheAthenai: It would take a far better writer than me to be able to craft something that would do justice to the underlying ideas
Valirys Reinhald: "That one day I'd claim mortality, a mercy against eternity, that sweet and comforting frailty, that freedom from divinity."
Valirys Reinhald: (Valirys Reinhald, 2020)
DavidtheAthenai: The most horrifying though, is that nothing similar would pass through Voldermort's mind in all his lonely eternity
DavidtheAthenai: Such an idea would break him entirely
Valirys Reinhald: yep
DavidtheAthenai: To admit he crafted his most terrible fear, that those dreams were no more than visions of what was to come
DavidtheAthenai: He would just dream
DavidtheAthenai: Dream of a world where he could come back
DavidtheAthenai: Where he fought and rallied, where he died like a man against Nemesis in a last stand
DavidtheAthenai: And dream of what came next, without him
Valirys Reinhald: It makes me think of the age old question for religion, "what does god get out of our existence?"
DavidtheAthenai: In this story it would be clear
Valirys Reinhald: Nothing, save that in existing the nothing is relieved
Valirys Reinhald: I gotta go, dinner is ready and my mortal needs are calling
DavidtheAthenai: It would imply that the whole of canon was an attempt of his mind to keep him sane. Of mend mistakes he won't admit happened
DavidtheAthenai: The line in the books (canon) where he dies like a mortal man would hit like a truck in this story
DavidtheAthenai: His very subconscious screaming and raging against a mistake the ego denies
DavidtheAthenai: And then to create, to see a world where everything is brighter without him
DavidtheAthenai: Damn
DavidtheAthenai: This prompt got heavy as fuck
Valirys Reinhald: I really wanna see it now
Valirys Reinhald: Although honestly we've probably grasped it's totality.
DavidtheAthenai: In a way yes, we have
DavidtheAthenai: But to put it to writing, to craft the particular words that would compose such a story... The impact would be significantly greater
DavidtheAthenai: Gods, I love this channel