A/N: I had the sudden inspiration to write this story, and although I know how it starts, I really have no idea where it might take me. This is, however, chiefly a healing/friendship fic – for both Harry and Tom Riddle. The ways in which I plan to do this, while remaining DH compliant, will hopefully become clearer the more this story progresses.
For now the rating is T, though it may be raised at a later date. Updates are likely to be odd lengths and just about as erratic as I am. Enjoy!
Disclaimer: Regrettably, I do not own the Harry Potter series. Nor the quote at the beginning of this chapter – which, conveniently, I found at the very front of my hardback copy of the Deathly Hallows. Nice choice of quote, Ms Rowling.
Divine Glass
'Death is but crossing the world, as friends do the seas; they live in one another still. For they must be present, that love and live in that which is omnipresent. In this divine glass they see face to face; and their converse is free, as well as pure. This is the comfort of friends, that they may be said to die, yet their friendship and society are, in the best sense, ever present, because immortal.' – William Penn, More Fruits of Solitude
In the very last seconds of Voldemort's existence – or at the very least, what remained of it – his life did not flash before his eyes, as lives are supposedly wont to do.
There was no bright flash of understanding, but for the bright flash of a spell.
There was no sudden epiphany, aside from that which he saw in the intense green eyes of his slayer.
There was not a moment of wisdom, or understanding, or closure.
There, in the last few seconds of his existence, the monster that was known as Voldemort died, and the soul of a broken, beaten, unloved child by the name of Tom Marvolo Riddle, was trapped within a brilliant white light. A stasis that, weaker than ever before – exposed, vulnerable, unmasked – he could do nothing to escape.
All that Tom Marvolo Riddle's shattered, incomplete soul could do was cry out for an end that would never come.