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Red eyes locked into green ones. Rage evident in both of them, similar yet so different.
One born out of hatred, one out of affection.
People used to say that the eyes are the mirror of the soul, and their souls were so very alike.
They were at a standoff, both their wands aimed at each other.
It came to him suddenly how their situation resembled the scene at the graveyard, but he knew, deep inside, that the outcome would greatly differ.
That was the last battle, they both knew it, yet he stood there unprotected, all his horcruxes gone, somehow he couldn't find the fear that he was sure would have clung to him, he was calm, determined.
It couldn't be his end, not yet, not for a long time. He could allow it.
But when those fatal words left his opponents mouth, eyes the color of death boring into him, asking him of all people to repent.
Then fear came, a panic so profound that nothing could ever compare to it.
Their spells met in the middle and, as the killing curse rebounded, he could only think -not yet, please, I don't want to die, I still have so much to do-
Before he could even blink, the green light hit him square in the chest.
He knew he was dead, yet he could still think, and all his mind could conjure was terror.
He couldn't be dead, he had sacrificed everything to escape such a fate, his humanity, his mind, his time. His life.
But he was, there was no point in denying it.
His hands started to shake, a black veil of fear draped over his every thought. Yet, a part of his mind wandered how he could still feel his body, how his mind could still work.
He had expected pain, torment and dread to await him on the other side.
Instead he found himself enclosed in an embrace.
Something was cradling him with so much care, more than he had ever felt, like he was a precious and fragile thing, and a soft cloak draped around him.
"Well done, oh you did so well my child, you were magnificent. But it's ok now, you shall not fear me, you can rest."
Immediately he knew who had spoken, who or what was holding him so tightly, as if he were a child, comforting him after his demise.
The voice was impossible, an oxymoron and a contradiction of his own senses, yet there was a softness there, a fondness that laced those words.
Terrified, but strangely reassured he let himself be lulled by the being.
"Why would you comfort me? I've defied everything you are" he was still shaking, despite his attempt to sound collected.
Death looked at him with what he could only imagine as kindness.
The entity didn't have a face, or rather, it had every face. Every single trait you could have expected from a living being to have, human or not, was there. Mixing together in something incomprehensible.
"That's where you're wrong, my child.
I'm inevitable, everything comes to me sooner or later, you can't defy me, you can't avoid me, I don't have any need to hurry, to shorten your time on earth.
I'll always hold dear those who fight the hardest, who pour every ounce of strength and brilliance and will into avoiding death, who fear me.
And you were magnificent.
You went against every odds, against your own nature as a human, you fought since your birth, mutilated yourself into avoiding me.
How could I not treasure such a soul?"
He didn't understand, that Death contradicted everything he had ever thought to know.
The Death he knew was cruel, heartless and encompassing. It took soldiers and children alike, it stole them from their families, it loomed over humanity since the beginning of time.
And it was now telling him that it didn't need to hurry, when he had sawn with his own eyes kids no older than three dying of illness at orphanage, when he himself had rushed its course so many times.
“But I did, I fought you at every turn, in every way I could” he was desperate, torn between accepting a fate he didn’t believe he deserved and clinging to his old belief, the view of the world he had always known.
"But I had no need to fight you my child, I was always going to get you in the end, humans aren't made for eternity, nothing is.
But who am I to deny you some more time to live? Why wouldn't I give those who fear me the time to accept me, to embrace their end, to live to their fullest?
And yet you were so scared that you spoiled your life, you spent so many efforts to avoid dying that it only brought you to me earlier than intended.
You've faced such misery, such loneliness, your whole story saddens me.
To think you'd fear my embrace so much that you've ruined your life in an attempt to escape it, just to fall into it sooner than dictated by fate, is the greatest tragedy of them all."
And those words broke him. His mind more scattered than ever, trying to make sense of the new truth he had just become privy to, to reconcile it into what he used to know.
Once, he thought he had known life, had understood everything there was to understand.
Now he had learned, he knew nothing.
So he stayed, he let himself relax for the first time since he learned of the works of the world.
The entity stayed as well, soothing him, cherishing him.
He didn't know how much time they spent like that, it felt like the concept had no meaning anymore, a moment could be an eternity and a second at the same time.
He didn't ask why death stayed, why it wasn't doing something else, it probably was.
Death was inevitable, omnipresent, everything died, every second of every minute countless life's met their end.
After a second and a year and century all pressed together, the entity spoke again.
"my child wants to speak with you"
He remembered how Death had called him his child as well, but something told him that word had a different meaning now.
Before it was generic, as if everything was his child, every soul he had ever gathered. But now it wasn't, it was personal, he didn't know how or why, he just knew.
"You child?"
"The only one who had never tried to escape me, who was born with me by his side and had grown in my shadow, who had avoided me not out of will but of circumstances, who had embraced me every step of the way and had greeted me as an old friend as his time came.
The master of the hollows"
He sucked in a breath, and suddenly a memory came to him. An old book he had found in the library in his first year, damaged how only a well loved book could be, pages yellowed by time and crumpled by countless children who, like him, were seeking comfort in children stories while away from home.
A story of the old times, featuring death as the patient being he now knew it was.
"Why would he want to meet me?" and who was this person who had managed to live in death.
The being only smiled with his many mouths. The sight should have been terrifying but somehow it was not, it felt like what he had pictured as a loving parent in his youth, when he had still yearned for one.
Alone, in the sea of white fog, he could only wait.
Soon the fog started to swirl, shaping itself in front of him and slowly taking human form, white limbs gaining color, until a man he knew too well was left standing in front of him.
He was older than the last time they met, no longer a scrawny and malnourished teen.
He was staring at him with eyes older than time itself; despite his still youthful appearance there was something ancient about him.
He had expected hatred from such a meeting, from whom of them he didn't know, yet it never came.
He should have hated him, he had hated him, that was the person that had forced him into his biggest fear. Yet he felt like he couldn't bring himself to bear such feelings.
And Harry Potter, out of everyone, was looking at Voldemort with something close to compassion.
He knew he should have hated that look, he had never wanted pity, just as he should have hated the man standing in front of him, but he could find it in himself, he only stared back.
“Hello Tom, long time not seen”.
There was something strange in his gaze, some sort of sad amusement, as if laughing at a joke only he could understand.
“Harry Potter, I can't say I had expected you” the lack of feelings in his voice had apparently surprised Harry, maybe he also had expected hatred to still linger between them.
“I know, but I had to check on you, I never forgave myself for what I've done to you.” and that confused him.
“What do you mean? We were enemies, I've tried to kill you countless times.”
The man only sighed and sat in front of him, meeting his eyes.
Only then it occurred to him, he had no idea what he looked like, if he was still the monster of the last years of his life or if he had regained his former appearance.
Come to think of it, he didn't even know who he was anymore, what his name was.
Voldemort felt so very wrong, Voldemort was full of hatred, fueled only by fear and hunger for something he couldn't even point out.
But Tom Riddle was too naive, too full of dreams, too scared. Always scared.
He wasn't scared anymore.
“Your eyes, I saw your eyes when I killed you.
I never wanted to, I never wanted to be part of that stupid war.” regret was so thick in his voice that he thought he could almost taste it, almost feel it.
“You know, I've always found us eerily similar. I used to think that a wrong choice might have made me fall in a path similar to yours, but I hadn't understood a crucial thing.
While we both grew surrounded by death I've learned to accept it. I've always thought that I would die before reaching my seventeen birthday and I had made peace with it, it didn't scare me anymore.
But you didn't, and I learned it too late.
When the spell hit you, I felt it, your fear, a terror I've never experienced before, so encompassing I couldn't breathe.
It has haunted me ever since.
In the quiet moments it always came back, for weeks I could barely sleep, and even after I was deeply affected by it.
And to know that I had caused it, I had killed you, I've lived with that guilt for years.
Yet I still welcomed it, it felt like some kind of redemption, like I was somehow making amends for my action. It told me that after all I wasn't a monster, if even your death could destroy me like that.
And I'm so very sorry, if only I had understood sooner I might have helped you. But I didn't, and I couldn't forgive myself for it.
I've always wanted to save everyone, but I couldn't save you.
I wanted to visit you sooner but I never did, I was so scared that you would have hated me.”
And at that moment Harry looked old.
Tired beyond belief, scarred to his very soul.
“I did, I used to hate you so much.
From the moment you were born, your simple existence was a threat, you were the embodiment of everything I used to fear.”
He tried to cling to every excuse he could find, his mind desperately trying to find justifications.
He had been pushed into it, it was his only option.
He needed power, he needed to be feared.
He was unloved, he had been abandoned countless times.
Dumbledore turned his back on him when he needed it most, his father had denied his rightful place, forcing him into a helpless life, Harry had threatened him, killed him.
Those thoughts gave him some respire, shielding him from the onslaught of emotions crushing him, but it didn't last, couldn't last.
The truth clawed its way to the surface, buried under hundreds of excuses. It fought to come to the surface, to be acknowledged, accepted.
All his defence crumpled, falling through his fingers like sand.
And he had no choice but to come to term with it.
“But it wasn't your fault, right? It had never been.” and wasn't that a revelation.
Everything that happened, did because of him, of his choices.
He went after Harry, He had tried to kill him repeatedly, He had sealed his own destiny.
His shoulder fell, crushed under the weight of what had happened.
He felt like in a press, his chest tightening, his breath labored.
He clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms in an attempt to ground him.
The fog around them darkened, moving with more force than it had in all the time he had spent in the void.
“It was always me, wasn't it? It was my fault, I've caused all of this, I forced your hand in the end…”
In that moment he missed the embrace of death, he really wanted to be held tight, so that the pieces that were breaking would be forced to stay in place, so he couldn't fall apart.
“It was” the confession came in such an understanding voice, with such kindness, it felt like a curse and a blessing at the same time.
And Harry shifted, and hugged him, anchoring him to his mind, stopping him from drifting away.
For the first time since he was a child, he let himself cry, desolation so encompassing he couldn't take it.
He had destroyed everything, his soul, his mind, his own life, everything he had ever created.
He had haunted Harry from the day he was born, the wonderful man who was holding him despite all the suffering he had caused.
Who knew him, his sins, and still was offering redemption, who had offered it even before killing him.
The only person who had wanted to save him, who he knew would have been able to look at the monster he had become and forgive him, bestowing him the grace like some kind God.
As the revelation made its way in his mind, the fog calmed, returning to its pristine white.
“It's ok now, you're fine. Death isn't so scary in the end, isn't it?
You don't have to be scared anymore, you can abandon your fear now Tom.”
And when said like that, maybe Tom could still be him. Just Tom.
The name he had always despised, said by Harry, felt right.
Maybe it was the gentless nobody had ever put into it, but it felt new in a way.
“But this isn't it, this isn't fear, it's not what you're feeling. This is remorse. You're sorry.” The voice was so disbelieving it almost made him laugh.
Instead he clinged to Harry, holding him just as strongly, hoping for him to understand his feelings.
“I am” and he surprised himself in hearing the same disbelief in his own voice “I really am, I was so scared I destroyed everything, I wasted it all and for what? I only shared my fears with the whole world, I spread that terror I did everything to avoid.
I am so sorry…”
A wave of warmth enveloped him as Harry’s arms tightened around him and a cheek pressed against his hair.
And, oh, he had hair apparently. He wasn't a monster anymore.
“It's fine now, it's ok, I fixed it, I fixed everything. All your damage.
I comforted all the souls you hurt, I rebuilt everything you had destroyed, I soothed all the people you frightened.
I made it right.
It's ok now.”
“Just who are you? How could you be so kind, so understanding, so… You?
You look young but you're not, your soul is ancient.
You should hate me and yet you are here, helping me.
I hurt you so much and you're still here, you know I don't deserve it.
How can your heart be so endless?”
Harry took a step back, looking him straight in the eyes, the green hard with determination, solemn but still somewhat soft.
“I am the master of Death.
That night I collected the last hallow and it changed me, I became more.
I learned to travel through the two plains of reality, I spent countless years helping others.
And still the only one I truly wanted to help still frightened me so much I couldn't bring myself to visit him.
But I made it, I'm here, and I'll fix this as well, I promise.”
He extended his hand to him.
“Will you let me?”
And Tom really didn't need to think twice before accepting it.