Chapter 1 – The Orphan Who Spoke to Snakes
The Wool's Orphanage smelled of boiled cabbage and damp stone. The corridors echoed with the cries of children, the shuffle of hard shoes, the occasional slap when discipline was meted out. Yet amidst the chaos, there was one boy who never cried.
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
He was small for his age but carried himself with a pride that unsettled the other children. His dark hair fell neatly despite the lack of care, his eyes sharper than any child's ought to be. He watched. He waited. He learned.
Matron Mrs. Cole whispered often to visiting inspectors: "There's something not right about him. Clever, yes. Too clever. But… cruel. He frightens the others. Animals go missing. Things happen when he's around."
Indeed, they did.
A rabbit once snapped its own neck in the play yard while Tom smiled. A cruel boy who bullied him was found locked in a cupboard three floors down, though no one admitted to letting him in. The other children never spoke against Tom — not out of loyalty, but fear.
One summer afternoon, a pair of snakes slithered through the cracks in the cellar wall, drawn by the heat. The other children screamed, but Tom crouched low, his expression intent. Words spilled from his lips — not English, not anything Mrs. Cole had ever heard. Hissing, guttural, ancient.
The snakes turned their heads, obeying him.
Tom stroked their scales, his lips curling into the faintest smile. "You understand me, don't you? I can command you."
For the first time in his young life, he felt power flow through him — raw, intoxicating.
The snakes vanished before anyone else could see. But the memory lingered, heavy and secret.
Years later, when Professor Albus Dumbledore visited the orphanage, he found a boy sitting perfectly still in a chair, waiting. Tom did not fidget, did not blink. He spoke politely, but beneath every word lay the sharpness of a knife.
"You're a wizard, Tom," Dumbledore explained gently.
"I already knew I was different," Tom replied. "The others — they're ordinary. Weak. I can do things they can't. I can hurt them when I want to. And they deserve it."
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed, his concern hidden behind a grandfatherly smile. He saw arrogance, cruelty, hunger. Yet he also saw brilliance. Potential.
Tom asked one question with fervor:
"Can I make people live forever?"
The professor hesitated before giving a carefully measured answer. "There are limits, Tom. Even magic cannot truly conquer death."
But Tom wasn't listening. He had already decided: he would never die. He would surpass death itself.
At Hogwarts, Tom Riddle was a star. Handsome, charismatic, the favorite of professors. Slughorn in particular adored him, blind to the venom behind his charm.
Yet among students, rumors spread. Strange disappearances. Curses whispered in the dark. Animals found lifeless in the Forbidden Forest, their bodies marked with runes no child should know.
Tom kept trophies — trinkets stolen from the orphanage, heirlooms from classmates, tokens from places he explored. Each one, he believed, tied him more firmly to his destiny.
The Chamber of Secrets became his secret realm, though none knew it yet. When he first opened it, the serpent within slithered out only at his command. Its hiss vibrated in his blood like a hymn of belonging.
He was Slytherin's true heir. He had found his proof.
The boy who once spoke to snakes in a damp cellar was no longer just an orphan. He was something else now — a shadow growing, waiting, hungry for more.
And though Percy Chronos had not yet stepped into this world, the threads of fate were already drawing closer. For every step Tom took toward immortality and dominion, the path twisted — leading him unknowingly toward the storm that would undo him.
🩸 Chapter 2 – Lord Voldemort Rises
Hogwarts was supposed to be home.
When Tom Riddle first set foot in the castle, he imagined stone walls bending to his will, secrets whispering themselves into his ear, and the world finally bowing to the sharp edge of his genius.
And in many ways, Hogwarts delivered. Professors adored him. Slughorn called him "brilliant, destined for greatness," and gathered him among his little club of favored students. Girls whispered about his sharp features, his dark, smoldering eyes. Boys followed because it was easier than standing against him.
But beneath the polished smile and carefully chosen words, Tom carried the same hollowness that gnawed at him since the orphanage — that unrelenting hunger for control.
🐍 The Charm and the Fear
In class, Tom was perfect. His essays were neat, his wandwork flawless. To professors, he was the image of discipline. To students, he was magnetic — too smooth, too certain.
But away from watchful eyes, his mask slipped.
He experimented with spells meant only for older wizards, combing the Restricted Section under cover of prefect patrols. When he practiced, there was no hesitation. A twitch of his wand and a rat burst into fire. A muttered phrase, and shadows coiled around him, answering his call like obedient pets.
Fear followed him — quiet, reverent fear. Even his closest "friends" never felt like equals.
🧬 The Gaunt Legacy
It was in his fifth year that Tom unearthed the truth that would define him.
The whispers began with an old family name — Gaunt. Slytherin's line, tarnished and withered into obscurity. Riddle followed the trail like a predator stalking prey, until it led him to a crumbling shack in Little Hangleton.
There, among filth and madness, he saw his blood reflected in the pitiful remnants of his mother's kin. Merope Gaunt — his mother. A witch, desperate and weak, who died birthing him. And his father — Thomas Riddle, a wealthy Muggle who abandoned her without a glance back.
Hatred settled into him like molten lead.
He was the heir of Salazar Slytherin, reduced to an orphan because his mother was frail and his father faithless. He would never forgive either side. His father for weakness, his mother for dying, and the world for letting him be born powerless.
From that day, he wore his ancestry like armor. Not Tom Riddle, the boy no one wanted. Lord Voldemort, heir of Slytherin.
🩸 Seeds of Followers
By the time he left Hogwarts, Voldemort's reach already stretched like roots in the dark.
He charmed Slughorn's favorites first — ambitious, impressionable youths who wanted to bask in his brilliance. He promised them they were chosen, better, destined for a world where their blood and ambition would rule.
Older students, even those wary of him, bent to his will. He was younger, but he radiated authority they couldn't defy. One by one, they became his shadows.
They practiced curses in hidden chambers. They tested loyalty with cruelty. Some recoiled, but Voldemort only needed the ones who stayed.
When he raised his hand, they raised theirs in answer. And when he first sketched the crude serpent and skull that would become his mark, their eyes gleamed with devotion.
🧊 Cold Resolve
Tom Riddle left Hogwarts not as a boy, not even as a man, but as something sharper — colder.
He had learned everything Hogwarts could give him. Knowledge, reputation, and power over others. But it was not enough. It would never be enough.
He swore then: he would conquer death itself. He would never be weak, never be forgotten, never be cast aside like his mother in childbirth or his father in cowardice.
The world would remember Lord Voldemort.
And it would kneel.
🩸 Chapter 3 – The Dark Mark
🌍 Wandering the World
When Tom Marvolo Riddle graduated from Hogwarts, he did not linger in Britain. The castle had given him knowledge and reputation, but it had also placed walls around him — professors still questioned, still guided, still set limits. He hated limits.
So he vanished.
Whispers trailed him to the far corners of the world. In Egypt, he walked through tombs unopened for millennia, coaxing curses to life and binding them to his will. In the Carpathian mountains, he studied blood rites with half-mad sorcerers who dared not speak their rituals in daylight. In the East, he learned wordless control, the art of commanding magic with thought alone.
Wherever he traveled, he left ruins — libraries stripped of their secrets, cults emptied of their treasures, dark wizards bound to his service or dead at his feet.
By the time he returned to Britain, he was no longer a prodigy fresh from school. He was something worse: a man who had devoured the world's darkest arts and carried them like weapons under his skin.
🏛 The First Gathering
The house was abandoned, its shutters rotting, its walls sagging with damp. Yet inside, a dozen figures sat uneasily around a warped table, the flicker of one candle casting their shadows long and sharp.
They were young — wizards and witches barely out of Hogwarts. Some had once been classmates, others pulled by whispers of power. They were ambitious, greedy, fearful — and easy prey.
Then the door opened.
Voldemort entered.
He carried no smile now, only a stillness that chilled the air. His robes whispered against the floor. His eyes — darker than night, lit faintly red when the candlelight caught them — swept the room, and every throat tightened.
"Thank you for coming," he said softly, yet it landed in their bones like a command. "The world is weak. Divided. Polluted with filth that calls itself our equal. I will remake it."
🔥 The Mark of Bondage
The first to kneel was Avery.
"My lord," he whispered, voice breaking.
Voldemort's lips curled faintly. He drew his wand, murmured a word none of them recognized, and green fire seared across Avery's forearm. The boy gasped, clutching at the skin, but when the flame died, there it was: a skull split by a serpent, burned into his flesh.
"This is your bond," Voldemort said, his voice low and silken. "When I call, you will feel it. You will obey."
The others shifted, some pale with fear, others trembling with desire. One by one, they stepped forward — Mulciber, Rosier, Lestrange. None dared refuse. By the end, the room reeked of singed flesh and sweat, but their eyes gleamed with devotion.
They were no longer schoolmates. They were bound.
🐍 The Cult of Fear
Voldemort paced the circle, every word calculated.
"You will be my enforcers. My messengers. My army. They will whisper your name in fear. They will curse you behind closed doors and pray I never hear it."
He lifted his hand and the mark on their arms pulsed faintly. They flinched as one.
"From shadows, we will strike. In noble houses, in alleyways, in the Ministry itself. Fear will spread faster than plague, and when the world begs for order…" His voice sharpened, serpentine. "We will already rule it."
⚔️ First Blood
He gave them their first command that very night.
"A family of Muggles in Little Hangleton. Proud. Loud. Oblivious. Silence them."
The words fell like iron chains. Hesitation flickered — but the burning of the Mark smothered it.
"Yes, my lord," they answered, bowing low.
And that night, as screams split the countryside and smoke curled into the sky, Voldemort stood on a distant rise, the wind pulling at his cloak.
He felt no pity. No regret. Only triumph.
The Dark Mark glowed faintly on his arm, not as loyalty to another, but as a reminder: these lives belonged to him.
🌑 The Shadow Ascends
He had walked the world and stolen its secrets. He had returned to Britain and bound the ambitious to his service. Now, for the first time, Lord Voldemort tasted what he had always hungered for.
Not adoration. Not companionship.
Power. Pure and absolute.
The age of fear had begun.
🩸 Chapter 4 – Terror Unleashed
The years that followed the creation of the Dark Mark were a slow-burning storm. What began as whispers of a charismatic wizard who promised to restore wizarding superiority soon hardened into open terror. Tom Riddle was gone — only Lord Voldemort remained, and those who served him wore his Mark with pride, searing black on their arms, a brand of loyalty that demanded more than obedience.
It began with disappearances. A clerk from the Ministry who spoke too loudly against "that new circle of pureblood radicals." A Muggle-born witch known for her work in charms, vanishing one night from her cottage. At first, the Ministry dismissed them as coincidences, runaways, accidents. But when bodies began turning up, mutilated with the Dark Mark cast into the sky above their homes, denial was no longer possible.
Voldemort moved carefully at first. He did not march openly but struck from the shadows. He sent his followers into the Ministry itself, not with curses, but with charm and cunning. Promotions found their way to his sympathizers, files disappeared, investigations stalled. Where fear alone would not silence, a quiet bribe or a whispered threat to a family sufficed.
And always, Voldemort himself remained a mystery. Few ever saw him directly. He was more myth than man — a voice in the dark, a masked figure who could appear in your home without warning. The Death Eaters' whispered stories made him seem immortal already.
But in truth, Voldemort was still perfecting his strategy. He was ruthless, yes, but deliberate. "A swift kill is a mercy," he once told his inner circle. "Better to let them live in fear, to wonder which breath will be their last."
It was a philosophy that worked. By the mid-years of his first rise, wizarding Britain was drowning in unease. Families whispered about who was safe to trust. Neighbors eyed each other with suspicion. Muggle-born students at Hogwarts received threatening letters. Some never returned after holidays.
The Ministry tried to act — Aurors launched raids, task forces patrolled villages — but it was like fighting shadows. For every Death Eater caught, three more slipped free, often released by judges who quietly pledged allegiance to Voldemort.
And Dumbledore? He fought, yes. His name became the only one Voldemort feared spoken in opposition. But even Dumbledore's resistance was hampered by his own ideals. He refused to strike preemptively, refused to abandon his "second chances." Some of his own allies began to murmur that he was too soft, too hesitant. Where Voldemort killed without remorse, Dumbledore hesitated, and people died for it.
The divide widened: Voldemort's vision of power through fear and blood purity against Dumbledore's fragile shield of hope and restraint.
Among the Death Eaters, Voldemort reigned as both savior and tyrant. He demanded absolute loyalty — those who faltered were made examples of, their screams echoing in hidden chambers before the Dark Mark was carved above their homes. Pureblood families fell over themselves to pledge daughters in marriage, vaults of gold, or secret knowledge, hoping to secure his favor. Some joined out of ambition, others out of fear — but all knelt.
The wizarding world itself changed. In pubs, wizards dropped their voices when discussing "You-Know-Who." Shops in Diagon Alley closed early; some Muggle-born businesses shuttered entirely. Children grew up learning silence was safer than courage.
And through it all, Voldemort thrived. He did not want merely to conquer Britain — he wanted to reshape it, to mold it into a world where only the strong ruled, and where his name was carved into history as eternal.
He stood one night before his followers in a manor house, torches casting shadows on his pale face. "This is not conquest," he declared, voice a silken hiss. "This is rebirth. A world remade in my image."
Cheers erupted, wands raised, Dark Marks burning in unison.
And outside, above the manor, the Dark Mark shimmered against the night sky — a skull with a serpent for a tongue. To the innocent, it was a sign of despair. To his followers, it was a beacon of victory.
The First Wizarding War had truly begun.
🔮 Chapter 5 – The Prophecy
The war had already stained Britain's nights with smoke and screams when fate — or what men believed to be fate — whispered its most dangerous words.
In the shadowed upper room of the Hog's Head Inn, a seer's voice cracked through the stale air. Sybill Trelawney, fragile and forgettable, was not a witch anyone would have noticed. But that night, her eyes rolled white, her voice hollowed, and something ancient pushed through her frail frame:
"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… Born as the seventh month dies… And the Dark Lord shall mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…"
Albus Dumbledore leaned forward as the words seared into his mind. He was a man who already believed too much in destiny, too much in prophecies guiding the currents of history. To him, this was not just chance — it was confirmation. Harry Potter, the child yet to be born, would be the weapon fate had handed him.
Dumbledore felt the thrill of certainty, but beneath it, relief. The war had raged too long, too bloody, and here was the answer. A boy, unknowing, innocent, malleable — the perfect vessel for the prophecy's weight. Already, Dumbledore began weaving plans in his mind: protection, isolation, molding.
But fate's cruelty was that the prophecy did not remain his secret alone.
For crouched outside the door was Severus Snape. Eavesdropping out of desperation for recognition, the young Death Eater heard enough. He did not wait to hear the whole prophecy; he fled into the night, cloak snapping behind him, to deliver his prize to his master.
—
When Voldemort heard the words from Snape's trembling lips, silence fell over his gathering. For a moment, the Dark Lord stood utterly still, pale fingers tracing the air as though the prophecy itself had wrapped around him.
A child. A mere infant was to challenge him?
The absurdity of it might have amused him once. But Tom Riddle had never underestimated prophecy. From his earliest years, he had clawed at control, desperate to never again feel helpless, and now, here was a warning that threatened his very existence.
The words were clear: born as the seventh month dies. Two children fit the description. Harry Potter, son of James and Lily. Neville Longbottom, son of Frank and Alice. Both families were members of the Order of the Phoenix, thorns in his side.
But one stood out.
James Potter — arrogant, defiant, always laughing as if the war were a game he couldn't lose. Lily Potter — brilliant and powerful, with that rarest of gifts, love that seemed to shield her against despair itself. Voldemort's hatred for them was already deep, but it was not hatred that chose the boy. It was calculation.
Harry Potter. Half-blood, like himself. A child who might one day mirror him, equal him. That was the threat he could not abide.
In his council chamber, Voldemort's voice turned cold as he declared:
"The boy is mine. Before he can rise, I will strike him down. Prophecy will not bind me. I will shape it."
His followers cheered, trembling in awe. The Dark Lord would crush destiny itself.
Yet in the recesses of his mind, a flicker of unease stirred. Prophecies were dangerous things — self-fulfilling, twisted. He had chosen Harry, and by choosing, he was setting the path. He would mark him. He would give him power through that mark.
But Voldemort, in his arrogance, dismissed the thought. To him, power was a matter of will, and his will had never faltered. He would destroy the Potters, shatter the prophecy, and prove himself beyond fate.
—
Far away, in his high office, Dumbledore traced the rim of his goblet, staring into the fire. He did not know Voldemort's choice, not yet. But he too was already calculating, already placing the boy into the prison of his "greater good."
The prophecy was not a warning — it was an opportunity. He would let the boy grow not with love, but with longing, isolation, and the hunger to belong. It would make him pliable, moldable. A boy ready to walk willingly into sacrifice when the time came.
Thus, on opposite sides of a war, two men — both arrogant, both believing themselves master of destiny — turned their eyes upon Harry Potter.
Neither realized that in choosing, in scheming, in shaping, they were already building the very path prophecy promised.
⚡ Chapter 6 – The Fall at Godric's Hollow
The autumn night was still, the little village of Godric's Hollow bathed in silver moonlight. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys, doors bolted, curtains drawn. On this night, even the owls were quiet, as though the world itself held its breath.
In the small cottage at the village's edge, a young couple huddled in whispers.
James Potter paced the sitting room, wand in hand, every nerve taut. His messy hair seemed wilder than ever, his hazel eyes blazing. Upstairs, Lily rocked their infant son, murmuring softly, her fiery hair like a shield of light around the child.
They knew. They had been warned. The prophecy was out, their names whispered in dark circles. The Fidelius Charm was supposed to protect them, Peter Pettigrew their Secret-Keeper. James had trusted him, called him brother. That trust would prove their undoing.
The wards around the cottage shivered — a ripple of unnatural magic like ice through warm air.
James froze. "He's here."
Before he could shout another word, the front door exploded inward. A cold wind rushed through with it, extinguishing the lamps, and in the doorway stood a figure cloaked in black. Red eyes glowed in the dark, slitted like a serpent's. Lord Voldemort.
James's wand came up instantly. "Lily! Take Harry — go! I'll hold him off!"
Voldemort's laugh was soft and cruel. "Bravery. Pointless, but touching."
James threw himself forward, hurling spells with every ounce of strength he had. But Voldemort was older, faster, steeped in darker arts. With a flick of his wand, James was disarmed, slammed against the wall.
"You needn't die tonight, Potter. Step aside. Your bloodline means nothing to me. It is the boy I want."
James spat blood, grinning defiantly. "Then you'll have to go through me."
Voldemort sneered. "So be it."
The jet of green light filled the room. James Potter fell, lifeless, his wand clattering uselessly beside him.
—
Upstairs, Lily heard it. Her breath hitched, but she did not scream. She clutched Harry tighter, tears burning her eyes. She knew Voldemort was coming, knew she would have no strength against him. Yet she did not run.
The door burst open. Voldemort glided in, his pale face illuminated by the child's night-lamp. He looked at Lily with disdain, as though she were already dead.
"Stand aside, girl. You need not suffer. It is the child who is destined to fall."
Her voice, sharp and trembling, filled the room. "Not Harry. Please — not Harry."
Voldemort's lip curled. "Love. Such a foolish shield."
But Lily did not move. She stood between Voldemort and her son, hands shaking but her eyes burning with fire. "If you want him, you'll have to kill me first."
Voldemort sighed, almost bored. "So be it."
The curse struck her chest. She fell without a sound, her body folding gracefully to the floor like a broken flame.
—
Now nothing stood between him and the child. Voldemort stepped closer, lowering his wand. The boy in the crib stared up at him, green eyes impossibly bright.
For a heartbeat, Voldemort faltered. He did not understand why. The child did not scream, did not cry — he simply looked at him, calm, curious.
Then Voldemort's rage burned hotter. He would not be mocked by an infant.
He raised his wand. "Avada Kedavra."
The room exploded in green light.
But something went wrong.
The spell struck — and rebounded. A force unlike anything Voldemort had felt ripped through him, tearing flesh from soul. He screamed, a high, inhuman shriek, as his body crumbled into ash and his spirit was hurled into shadow.
The cottage walls shattered outward, the roof caved, fire and rubble burying what was left of the Dark Lord.
Yet in the crib, the boy still lived. Crying now, frightened by the sound and the light. On his forehead, a lightning-shaped scar burned, marking him forever.
Harry Potter had survived.
—
Far away, Albus Dumbledore sat in his office, the firelight glinting off his half-moon glasses. The wards told him the moment it happened. The curse had rebounded, Voldemort was gone — or so the world would believe.
He leaned back, steepling his fingers, whispering to himself.
"Lily gave her life… the boy lives. Yes… yes, this will do."
Already he was planning. Harry would not be raised among wizards who might glorify him. No — he would be hidden, weakened, molded into humility. He would not grow arrogant, not like Tom. He would grow into the weapon the prophecy demanded.
Dumbledore closed his eyes, whispering as if to Fate itself.
"Harry Potter. The Boy Who Lived… and the boy who must die, when the time comes."
And in the ruins of Godric's Hollow, a golden-haired rat scurried from the shadows, eyes gleaming with cowardly triumph.
☠️ Chapter 7 – The Possession of Quirrell
The forests of Albania were silent that winter. No villagers dared wander into the ancient groves, where the air hung heavy with whispers of curses. Among the twisted roots and moss-choked stones, something darker than shadow clung to the earth.
It was not a body. It was barely a spirit.
Lord Voldemort drifted, no more than smoke, his form shredded by the night at Godric's Hollow. He remembered the blinding green flash, the burning collapse of his body, and the child's calm green eyes. Rage alone tethered him to existence.
For years, he drifted. He learned quickly that he could not travel far — he was too weak, bound to cursed places and dead soil. Beasts fled him. Birds fell silent where he passed. Only snakes, cold and loyal, coiled near his ghost and whispered back in their hissing tongue.
But even they could not sustain him. He needed more.
He needed a vessel.
—
Years later, one came stumbling into the Albanian woods.
Professor Quirinus Quirrell, Hogwarts' teacher of Muggle Studies-turned-Dark Arts scholar, had left Britain in search of knowledge and glory. Always timid, always overlooked, Quirrell longed for recognition. He told himself he would find secrets of the Dark Arts abroad, something to finally earn him respect.
Instead, he found Voldemort.
The first meeting was terror cloaked in velvet. Quirrell had been camping near a ruined temple when the forest fell unnaturally silent. A black mist slithered from the stones, and a voice colder than ice coiled around him.
"A wizard… clever enough to wander where others fear… Tell me your name."
Quirrell dropped to his knees, trembling. "Q…Quirinus Quirrell, my lord…"
"My lord." Voldemort savored the words. Already this man's fear was a leash.
—
At first, Voldemort tested him. He whispered promises of power, knowledge forbidden even in the darkest corners of Durmstrang or Knockturn Alley. Quirrell obeyed, fetching him snakes for conversation, spilling his blood in crude rituals to strengthen the shade.
But it was not enough.
Voldemort could feel the child — Harry Potter — still alive. The prophecy's threat remained. He needed a body to return to Britain, to act, to strike.
And so, one night, when Quirrell bowed too low and lingered too long, Voldemort struck.
He poured himself into Quirrell's flesh like venom into a vein.
The man screamed — once, then no more. His body convulsed, his eyes rolled back, and when they opened again, there was red burning faintly within. His voice when he rose was not his own.
"Yes… this will do."
Quirrell stumbled, weak, his limbs shaking under the weight of another's presence. But Voldemort's will held him upright. From that moment, he was no longer Quirinus Quirrell. He was a puppet, half-man, half-host, bound to the will of the Dark Lord.
—
They returned to Britain quietly. Voldemort was cautious now — he had learned what overconfidence cost him.
He studied the currents of wizarding politics from the shadows: Dumbledore's rising influence, the Ministry's fumbling grasp on control, the whisper of an object hidden at Hogwarts that could restore him fully — the Philosopher's Stone.
Quirrell spoke meekly in public, still stammering, still nervous, the perfect mask. None could see that when he slept, a shadow whispered in his dreams, and when he taught, a second voice sometimes hissed beneath his own.
And always, Voldemort's hunger grew.
"The boy still lives. The prophecy has not broken. I will not fail again. Not to a child. Not to anyone."
But deep inside, though he would never admit it, there was something new coiling alongside his rage — a faint, gnawing dread. A shadow he could not name, pressing closer every day.
It was the first taste of Percy's looming presence in the world, though Voldemort had yet to understand it.
☠️ Chapter 8 – The Dread of Percy's Arrival
The host's body twitched in sleep. Quirinus Quirrell lay shivering in his narrow bed at an inn outside Knockturn Alley, his skin clammy with sweat. He dreamed of forests, of snakes, of dark corridors that never ended.
But Voldemort did not sleep. He had not known rest since the night his body was destroyed.
He lingered like poison at the edge of Quirrell's mind, scanning the magical currents that ran through Britain. The country's magic still tasted weak, complacent, softened by peace. It should have been his to devour. Soon, he promised himself. The Stone would make him whole, and Harry Potter's blood would end the prophecy once and for all.
And yet — there was something.
A ripple.
He felt it first in Albania, before crossing the Channel: a shudder in the tapestry of magic itself, as if a new weight had been thrown upon the board. At the time he dismissed it — a flare of ancient wards, perhaps, or some fool tampering with forbidden rituals.
But the sensation grew stronger when he returned to Britain. At first faint, then oppressive, like a storm pressing on the skull. The closer he drew to London, the more it clung to him.
It was not Harry Potter. That boy's presence was sharp, bright, irritating — a scar etched across his destiny. This was different. This was deeper. Older.
One evening, as Quirrell ate his meager stew in silence, Voldemort tightened his grip on the man's body and forced him to freeze.
"Still yourself," Voldemort hissed inside his mind.
Quirrell dropped his spoon with a clatter. "M-my lord?"
"Do you not feel it?"
The professor blinked. He felt only his nerves, his hunger, the ache in his limbs. But Voldemort felt it in every shadow, every breath of air: a pulse of magic that did not belong to this age.
Ancient. Relentless. Terrifying in its simplicity.
For the first time since Godric's Hollow, Voldemort faltered.
What is this power?
No book had spoken of it. No ritual had prepared him. This was not Dumbledore's meddling — Albus's magic was bright and clever, but limited by rules. This was not the Ministry, nor any family's heirloom.
This was something else.
And worse — it moved closer each day.
—
Whispers soon reached Knockturn Alley: a youth named Percy Chronos had walked into Gringotts and claimed a house thought extinct. The goblins had bowed. Families whispered of vaults overflowing with treasures unseen in centuries. Of a phoenix-dragon familiar that made even the old bird Dumbledore kept seem fragile.
At first Voldemort sneered. Another pureblood relic, nothing more. But when the name Chronos brushed his ears, that pulse of dread slammed into him like a curse.
Chronos. Time. Space. Earth. Words older than Rome, older than wizards themselves.
The spirit inside Quirrell hissed and recoiled. His host yelped and grabbed at his head, but Voldemort's fear smothered him silent.
For the first time in his long life, Lord Voldemort felt truly small.
"This… is impossible," he whispered to himself through Quirrell's lips.
Quirrell trembled. "My lord?"
Voldemort did not answer. He would not admit it. But he knew in the hollow of his soul that this presence — Percy Chronos — was not like Harry Potter. The boy with the scar was prophecy's pawn, a child Voldemort was certain he could crush.
This was different.
This was fate itself refusing him.
And yet Voldemort, proud even in terror, snarled back against the unseen weight.
"I will not bow. I am Lord Voldemort. I am destiny itself."
But in the dark, when Quirrell's body finally slept, the shade of Voldemort shivered. The dread did not leave. It lingered at the edge of all things, whispering a single truth.
Your reign is already broken. You just do not know it yet.