7Spells
So all the way back in... MAY I signed up for a prompt challenge 7Spells
The basic idea is that you get seven prompts and pick a character/pairing that you're unfamiliar with, never written before, etc.
So I chose Tom Riddle/Voldemort because I had never written anything about him.
And I just now finished - yes, it took me that many months to finally get seven 100 word ficlets done. Sigh.
So, here are seven unrelated drabbles about Tom Riddle/Voldemort.
They're all at different points in his life, and I suppose you could look at them as if they're all the same version of Tom, but they can be read separately as well.
Title: A Broken Hallelujah drabble series
Character: Tom Riddle/Voldemort
Prompt: all listed below the cut
Rating: PG 13
Word Count: 100 x 7
Summary: Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, and every sad step in between.
Author's Note: Title of series comes from Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." The first drabble is more experimental then the others, so please give it a chance :)
1. Cold Hands, Cold Feet
He felt cold all over; in his hands, in his feet, in his arms, in his legs.
And in his heart.
Cold not exactly like oh-I-went-out-for-a-walk-in-the-snow-but-do-not-worry-I’ll-be-fine-soon! but more I-feel-as-if-my-very-blood-has-frozen.
I feel like I shall never be warm again.
But maybe that was the price of murdering your father and his family and then splitting your soul over their dead bodies.
It made sense, he supposed; if you’re ripping in half what makes you a human, what defines who you are, anyone you’ve ever been, and the hope of what you someday might be… wouldn’t you die a little inside, too?
2. The Puppet Master
They stood waiting; waiting for a sign, an order, any indication of what it was he wished for them to do, while he just watched his soldiers line up before him, ready to fight for him and to die for him.
They were an army of the purest of bloodlines, and they were all kneeling down before his own impure feet, eager to go to war, unquestioning in their belief of his might.
It was pure, unadulterated power. And it was intoxicating.
He was the puppet master, and they were but willing marionettes waiting on the pull from their puppeteer.
3. Five Shades of White
He would be the first to admit that the world wasn’t just black and white.
That was a fool’s belief, and he was anything but foolish.
He could see it in himself, even if no one else would dare to mention it; a half-blood leading a wave of racism and prejudice against his own people? Purebloods rallying behind the very ‘type’ of wizard they claimed to be inferior?
There were shades of every color in the world - black, red, blue, green - but he found that of all the colors in the world, the one with the most shades was white.
4. Glass Moon
He didn’t often do poetic, girly things like this.
I mean, hell - gazing out at a full moon and a perfectly star-lit sky?
First Year Hufflepuffs did this sort of shit, not Seventh Year Slytherins.
But that didn’t stop him from laying his head down on the windowpane and just thinking.
He didn’t know how the blood elitists he had once so desperately craved the approval of had become his followers.
Followers who expected actions behind the words.
He didn’t know if he could do what they wanted, if he was even capable.
But time would tell, he was sure. Time would always tell.
5. If You Wanted Honesty
He felt Dumbledore’s eyes on him and couldn’t help but look away. It was like the man could tear apart every wall you’d ever built with just a glance.
“It’s the creature that killed her, I’m sure of it,” He said, and the lie felt sweet coming off his lips.
Everyone believed him, and why wouldn’t they?
Dumbledore was the only one who ever doubted.
“Why do I feel like you don’t trust me, Professor?”
“If you wanted honesty, my boy, you wouldn’t have asked me.”
Tom glared into the old fool’s eyes and hated Dumbledore once again for always being right.
6. The Sea
He goes to the sea for the first time at age eight.
It’s a sort of holiday for all the children, financed by some do-gooder member of high society.
Tom’s read about the sea, he’s seen pictures, heard other kids talk about it.
But when he gets there, finally experiences it for himself, it’s disappointing.
Images of impossibly blue water and the sun burning down on him is replaced by the reality of waves crashing violently and hail that rains down in an icy shower.
The sea is just as cold, broken, and imperfect as everything else in Tom’s world.
7. Candle In The Window
Tom has lived in the orphanage since the day he was born.
He doesn’t know any life other than this one, and you can’t miss what you never had in the first place.
Still, as he sits by the window, fogging up the glass with short puffs of breath, his only company a solitary candle, he dreams of something different.
Of a life where he is powerful, admired, loved.
It’s an idle wish, though. One that Tom knows will never come to be.
In a gust of wind from the drafty floor, the candle goes out with a hiss.
The basic idea is that you get seven prompts and pick a character/pairing that you're unfamiliar with, never written before, etc.
So I chose Tom Riddle/Voldemort because I had never written anything about him.
And I just now finished - yes, it took me that many months to finally get seven 100 word ficlets done. Sigh.
So, here are seven unrelated drabbles about Tom Riddle/Voldemort.
They're all at different points in his life, and I suppose you could look at them as if they're all the same version of Tom, but they can be read separately as well.
Title: A Broken Hallelujah drabble series
Character: Tom Riddle/Voldemort
Prompt: all listed below the cut
Rating: PG 13
Word Count: 100 x 7
Summary: Tom Riddle, Lord Voldemort, and every sad step in between.
Author's Note: Title of series comes from Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah." The first drabble is more experimental then the others, so please give it a chance :)
1. Cold Hands, Cold Feet
He felt cold all over; in his hands, in his feet, in his arms, in his legs.
And in his heart.
Cold not exactly like oh-I-went-out-for-a-walk-in-the-snow-but-do-not-worry-I’ll-be-fine-soon! but more I-feel-as-if-my-very-blood-has-frozen.
I feel like I shall never be warm again.
But maybe that was the price of murdering your father and his family and then splitting your soul over their dead bodies.
It made sense, he supposed; if you’re ripping in half what makes you a human, what defines who you are, anyone you’ve ever been, and the hope of what you someday might be… wouldn’t you die a little inside, too?
2. The Puppet Master
They stood waiting; waiting for a sign, an order, any indication of what it was he wished for them to do, while he just watched his soldiers line up before him, ready to fight for him and to die for him.
They were an army of the purest of bloodlines, and they were all kneeling down before his own impure feet, eager to go to war, unquestioning in their belief of his might.
It was pure, unadulterated power. And it was intoxicating.
He was the puppet master, and they were but willing marionettes waiting on the pull from their puppeteer.
3. Five Shades of White
He would be the first to admit that the world wasn’t just black and white.
That was a fool’s belief, and he was anything but foolish.
He could see it in himself, even if no one else would dare to mention it; a half-blood leading a wave of racism and prejudice against his own people? Purebloods rallying behind the very ‘type’ of wizard they claimed to be inferior?
There were shades of every color in the world - black, red, blue, green - but he found that of all the colors in the world, the one with the most shades was white.
4. Glass Moon
He didn’t often do poetic, girly things like this.
I mean, hell - gazing out at a full moon and a perfectly star-lit sky?
First Year Hufflepuffs did this sort of shit, not Seventh Year Slytherins.
But that didn’t stop him from laying his head down on the windowpane and just thinking.
He didn’t know how the blood elitists he had once so desperately craved the approval of had become his followers.
Followers who expected actions behind the words.
He didn’t know if he could do what they wanted, if he was even capable.
But time would tell, he was sure. Time would always tell.
5. If You Wanted Honesty
He felt Dumbledore’s eyes on him and couldn’t help but look away. It was like the man could tear apart every wall you’d ever built with just a glance.
“It’s the creature that killed her, I’m sure of it,” He said, and the lie felt sweet coming off his lips.
Everyone believed him, and why wouldn’t they?
Dumbledore was the only one who ever doubted.
“Why do I feel like you don’t trust me, Professor?”
“If you wanted honesty, my boy, you wouldn’t have asked me.”
Tom glared into the old fool’s eyes and hated Dumbledore once again for always being right.
6. The Sea
He goes to the sea for the first time at age eight.
It’s a sort of holiday for all the children, financed by some do-gooder member of high society.
Tom’s read about the sea, he’s seen pictures, heard other kids talk about it.
But when he gets there, finally experiences it for himself, it’s disappointing.
Images of impossibly blue water and the sun burning down on him is replaced by the reality of waves crashing violently and hail that rains down in an icy shower.
The sea is just as cold, broken, and imperfect as everything else in Tom’s world.
7. Candle In The Window
Tom has lived in the orphanage since the day he was born.
He doesn’t know any life other than this one, and you can’t miss what you never had in the first place.
Still, as he sits by the window, fogging up the glass with short puffs of breath, his only company a solitary candle, he dreams of something different.
Of a life where he is powerful, admired, loved.
It’s an idle wish, though. One that Tom knows will never come to be.
In a gust of wind from the drafty floor, the candle goes out with a hiss.