Chapter One: An experiment gone horribly awry
Gliding to a gradual stop, I looked up into the clear sky as I debated my next move.
“I will make them pay.”
The words echoed loudly in the silent night. The moon glowed brightly in the dismal gray of the night’s landscape. The edges seemed to fade into the night sky, causing an odd yellow haze that gave it the appearance of subtle motion.
“Damn them.”
I skimmed the surface of the woodland floor, contemplating what sort of misery I could cause with each determined step.
“Every last one of them.”
My words rang out in the forest. After a few minutes of continual movement, I reached the tree line. I searched for the tree I had marked before the battle began. My Apparation point.
“Curse you, Harry Potter.”
With a nearly silent ‘pop’, I Apparated. My home. The castle that had belonged to my parents, lay just outside of Hogsmeade Village. My family, with all of our piles of money and overwhelming faults, was one of the oldest families in the known wizarding world. Now, I’m all that’s left of our pure-blood family.
I’m not even sure that I qualify as a pure-blood anymore. In fact, I don’t think my blood has been pure since the day after I was born. That day sealed my fate, determined my destiny, and altered the course of the stars in the heavens.
My mother, creative witch that she was, came up with the idea while my father carried out her instructions. He didn’t have a decisive bone in his body. I can remember the ceremony as if I had tumbled headfirst into a Pensieve. It felt vaguely like I was submersed in the memory, watching it play out before me at an accelerated rate.
As my day old body lay shivering on the cold marble of the dedication altar, my mother and father undertook an ancient magic that hadn’t been attempted by anyone in their lifetime – or several lifetimes before.
The sacrificial snake lay on the altar next to me, petrified by my mother’s wand. As I squirmed, my tiny fists flailing wildly, my mother began the incantation.
Within seconds, heat flared through my infant body. I remember how I screamed in agony, crying out for the pain to stop. I howled until I was hoarse and all of the air had been expelled from my lungs. I took a deep breath, filling my body with much needed oxygen, and prepared to let loose with another barrage of wailing, when the pain unexpectedly stopped. My body went numb, but this time was different. My skin was no longer chilled and my body wasn’t registering the cold properly.
My mother had finished the incantation and was standing over me. As she reached out to touch me, her eyes glittered with a sadistic sort of glee. Her finger caressed my arm tenderly. The heat from her touch burned my skin and I opened my mouth to scream again. A strange low hiss filled the air.
My mother’s eyes gleamed with perverse pleasure at the sound. She ran her finger down my other arm causing me to hiss in pain a second time. She watched closely for a reaction. Her face filled my vision, blocking everything else from my sight.
While hovering directly above my diminutive body, she tickled the soles of my feet purposefully. Rather than hiss in pain, which seemed to please her, I closed my eyes tightly and clenched every muscle in my body.
At her gasp of fear, my eyes flew open. Instinctively I knew that something had gone horribly wrong. I tried to move my arms, but I found them fused to my body. I couldn’t kick my legs, as they were fused together too. Panicking, I thrashed around franticly. I tried to scream one last time, giving it every ounce of power I had. When only a strangled hiss escaped my lips, I resigned myself then and there to a life of tortured solitude in my mother’s house. Amazingly, as my body relaxed with this acceptance, I felt my toes curl ever so slightly.
Within minutes, I could not only move my arms and kick my legs; I had a dull lusty cry.
It took my mother months to realize what had gone horribly wrong, years to teach me how to control my new ‘gift’, and a lifetime to come to terms with the changes she had brought about.
More than a hundred years later, I found myself thinking back on those days from my youth. All of the training I had received had prepared me for ultimate power.
“Blast those children.”
They had taken away everything I had worked for by killing that halfblooded fool. After all the years I had put in, training him to be The Dark Lord, he had gone off on a whim and ruined everything.
“Riddle.”
It took me decades to find someone who possessed the capability to speak to snakes. I knew that in order to be able to shape my prodigy in my image, they would have to be a Parselmouth so that I could plant subliminal suggestions. After an exhaustive search, I happened across him in the most particular place.
“Finding him in the forest in Albania should have been my first clue.”
I had spent years tutoring him, guiding him while he slept. As his pet ‘snake’, I had the perfect position to mold him into the leader I needed him to be. All he had to do was toe the ruddy line and we would have inherited the world. Then, that prophecy was made and everything went to hell.
“Potter.”
He just had to make sure that his precious power would be undisputed. He had to go to Godric’s Hollow that night. He had to dispatch of those meddling people and their infant son. He had to make sure the prophecy remained unfulfilled.
“Snape had to tell him of that ruddy prophecy.”
Of course the boy lived. Nothing else could have happened. I tried to warn him not to go off half-cocked, chasing that insignificant boy, but there was no way I could warn him that the prophecy was incomplete. I would have blown my cover and destroyed all of the hard work I had put into this project. Instead, I had to be content to watch from the sidelines as he cursed the boy and set into motion the chain of events that would be his ultimate destruction. I prayed for the best, gathering followers for my Lord, and biding my time.
“Voldemort.”
I planted the idea of using the Sorcerer’s Stone in his head. I sent Quirrell to him, a willing body to be used as he saw fit. For the first time, he made a smart decision and the plan was moving along smoothly. Then, that meddlesome old fool had to step in to protect the Chosen One. Despite the setback, I managed to convince him to keep to the plan. Once he had the Stone, Dumbledore would be powerless to stop him. He couldn’t even manage to take the Stone from the boy, though at the time the boy was only eleven years old.
“How hard could it have been?”
I gave that pompous Lucius Malfoy the enchanted diary, in the hopes that Potter would be drawn into its clutches. In his infinite wisdom, Lucius gave the diary to the Weasley brat, ruining months of intense planning. I informed Voldemort of the setback and Lucius was sufficiently punished. Then there was a glimmer of hope. Harry Potter had acquired the diary and was writing in it. His curiosity allowed Voldemort to plant the memory of Hagrid’s capture in his mind.
“Idiot.”
Then that Weasley chit stole the diary back and began to pour even more of her soul into Tom. Tom, at the most obnoxious of ages, decided that he would use her as bait for Potter.
“Great idea. One that would only make sense to the dullest of teenage wizards.”
When Potter arrived, he managed to kill the Basilisk and save the girl. Once more, I was left with nothing. Harry Potter was, yet again, a hero. Voldemort, in Tom’s body, was destroyed.
“How many times must I save his sorry hide?”
Then, after another year of planning, I found Peter. He was in the perfect position to deliver Potter to the Dark Lord and regain his preferred position in the inner circle. Despite his intelligence, he turned out to be a coward. His fear of death led him to beg for his life when Black and Lupin caught him. He managed to ruin all of my plans and set me back another year.
“Ruddy rat.”
I finally happened across the perfect plan. Nothing could stop me this time. Voldemort would reign supreme. Against my better judgment, I involved several of Voldemort’s trusted followers. Months passed and it looked as though my plan was going to be pulled off without a hitch. The Tri-Wizard Tournament was going as planned; Potter was in the lead and it was not apparent that the outcome had been fixed. He and that loyal Hufflepuff were alone in the maze, after I arranged the ingenious dispatching of the other two whelps. All Potter had to do was let his competitive spirit take over and grab the cup.
“No. He couldn’t. Could he?”
The spare was killed immediately upon entering the graveyard and everything was back on track. The rebirthing ceremony went smoothly. Potter’s blood was taken and the bones of Tom Riddle Senior were used in the ceremony. Voldemort not only had a body, but his magic had also returned, bolstered by the addition of Potter’s blood. Then, the most ridiculous thing happened.
“A duel? What was he thinking?”
Voldemort just had to go and challenge Potter to a duel. With his new body he felt invincible. Then…
“Completely accidentally, I’m sure.”
Potter managed to connect their wands. No one who has committed a grievous act could possibly win a battle of past acts. With nobody to guide him, Voldemort didn't have any idea how to break the connection. Potter managed to break the connection and escape, taking the dead body back to Dumbledore and alerting him to our plans immediately.
“At least my Lord still had a body this time.”
With Voldemort by my side, seeking my counsel again, we plotted for over a year. We kept our activities secret, alerting only those we deemed necessary. Unbeknownst to me, Voldemort had been playing mind games with Potter. Dumbledore was alerted to our continued activities and tried to mentor the boy to fight Voldemort’s intrusions.
“I should have noticed his distance and realized he was up to something.”
Voldemort enticed Potter into the Ministry by planting a vision of Black’s death. Once there, he attempted to coerce him into retrieving the prophecy. When the fight was all but lost, he decided to retrieve the prophecy himself. At that point, Potter had the prophecy in his possession, or so Voldemort thought.
“Of course it was broken.”
When he discovered it was broken, he was furious. His plans, not to mention mine, had been shattered yet again. He was blissfully unaware that several people had heard the prophecy.
“Thank Merlin for that. He probably would have attempted to kidnap them all and bring them back to our lair. What a mess that would have been.”
This time, it was not possible to talk him out of violence. He killed Madam Bones personally, in retaliation for the incident at the Ministry. She had nothing to do with it, of course, but he punished her for everyone else’s actions that night. The Brockdale Bridge, West County, Herbert Chorley; they were all instances of the Death Eaters out enjoying their jobs.
“A duck? Did they really think that was funny?”
Potter and his followers took out our Death Eaters, one by one, as they fought to regain the peaceful world they had once known. Voldemort, deeply involved in his revenge, barely noticed that he had virtually no one left to protect him.
“Of course, I noticed that he was unprotected. What could I do? If I revealed myself, all would have been for naught.”
I could do nothing to stop the events that had been set in motion that dark night in Godric’s Hollow. Voldemort had sealed his fate by attacking an innocent child, and now that child had grown up and was prepared to sacrifice his life for the greater good.
“Idiotic notions of greatness.”
I was there when Potter showed his strength in Knockturn Alley. I was there when Potter defeated the Dark Lord in Godric’s Hollow, completing the circle. I was there when Potter and his loved ones celebrated the fall of my prodigy. I waited until they left to assume my human form. There was no sense in alerting them to danger. Soon, they would find out that the danger I represent is more insidious than Voldemort could have ever hoped to be, for I am not deceitful and devious. I am an ever-present corruption on the lifeblood of their precious society.
Now, standing here in my home, the place I was both born and reborn, I curse the time I wasted on Voldemort. After all, I am Ciara D’arcy. I am directly descended from the darkness, and my blood flows only to seek vengeance against those who have wronged me.
"I shall have my revenge, Harry Potter. Mark these words, for they shall seal your fate."
Author’s Note: J.K. Rowling created the world in which I work. Everything Harry is hers alone.