The world no longer challenged me.There was nothing left that could.
Decades of domination had brought order where there was once chaos. Every nation answered to me; every wand that rose in defiance eventually bowed. Magic itself bent to my will, reshaped by the endless tide of my experiments.
And yet, for all that, I felt… empty.
Perhaps it began with the silence. When the last of my rivals had perished, and the whispers of rebellion faded into myth, the world grew quiet. Too quiet. I could feel the centuries stretching before me—endless, sterile, inevitable. The realization struck me like a curse: I would outlast everything.
Immortality had once been my greatest triumph. Now it was a sentence with no end.
To occupy the void, I began creating.
Not weapons, nor secret magics meant to shatter reality—those I kept locked away in my private grimoires—but spells that might serve the living. I released a new school of defensive magic designed to reinforce wards using ambient mana. I published treatises on potion stability, on the purification of dragon's blood, on how to brew healing elixirs from basilisk venom—something once thought impossible.
The public hailed me as a benevolent genius, a savior of wizardkind. Students studied my theories as scripture. I became the subject of murals and statues. The name Riddle no longer inspired fear, but reverence.
They could not understand that these works were not born from generosity.They were distractions.
Each discovery delayed the inevitable thought that lurked beneath the surface: I was alone. Utterly, unshakably alone.
In the solitude of my private chambers beneath Hogwarts, I wrote.
Hundreds of notebooks filled my shelves—records of research, musings on magic, philosophical arguments with myself. My handwriting varied from precise and elegant to nearly unreadable, depending on my mood. I wrote not for posterity, but to keep from collapsing beneath the weight of my own eternity.
And I kept a diary. A true diary, not of experiments or spells, but of thoughts—those I could not share with anyone else. The pages were soaked in melancholy and confession. They chronicled not victories or discoveries, but feelings, or rather, the absence of them.
I had realized something… unnerving.I could no longer feel love.
I had tried—honestly, desperately. Companionship, romance, lust. I had taken lovers over the years, both wizard and witch, even those of beauty and brilliance that would have once stirred me. Their touch was pleasant, their admiration flattering, but it was hollow. There was no warmth beneath the skin, no spark in the heart. Only the empty echo of what emotion used to be.
Perhaps it was the price of my immortality.Or perhaps it was me, eroded by centuries of power and the endless pursuit of perfection.
I remember one night vividly. I sat in my study, surrounded by the faint hum of the Worldflame resting within a crystal brazier. Its white‑silver glow flickered across my notes. The light was warm, almost comforting, but it could not chase away the chill in my chest.
I tried to imagine what it would mean to live forever—truly forever. Past the fall of nations, past the fading of the stars, past even the death of the universe itself. When the last sun burned out and the last atom grew cold, I would still remain. A single consciousness floating in the dark, eternal and alone.
The thought should have terrified me.Instead, it only made me tired.
So I buried the dread beneath work. I invented new magics. I experimented with merging runic languages. I crafted living potions that could evolve over time. Each success gave me a momentary spark of purpose before the void returned.
I knew this cycle well by now. Creation. Elation. Emptiness. Repeat.
Sometimes I walked the corridors of Hogwarts in the dead of night, unseen. I would hear the laughter of students echoing from the dormitories—small, fleeting, human sounds. They were mortal. Finite. Each laugh, each breath, a precious spark in the endless dark.
I envied them.
It was a strange thing for a god to envy mortals, but envy them I did. Their lives meant something precisely because they would end. Their days were numbered, their loves fleeting, their joys fragile—and that made them real.
Mine was eternal, and thus meaningless.
I have started to think of leaving something behind—not just knowledge or inventions, but a legacy that might endure when I grow too weary to continue. Perhaps I will pass on fragments of my power, scattered like seeds across the ages. Perhaps one day, a descendant of mine will stumble upon a tome of my secrets and try to understand the man I once was.
Or perhaps they will curse my name, as others once did.
Either way, it will be something.
For now, I continue to write. The diaries multiply. My notebooks fill with the blueprints of magics yet unborn. My clones continue their research in silence.
It's enough, I tell myself. Enough to keep going another century.
But some nights, when the castle sleeps and the flames gutter low, I look into the mirror and see a reflection I no longer recognize. Not the young man I once was, nor the god I have become—but something in between.
A being searching for meaning in a universe he has already conquered.
And though I have mastered life, death, and magic itself… I have yet to master myself.