I was five years old.
Five… and yet I was more powerful than most grown wizards would ever dream to be.
Vinda Rosier stood guard outside the crumbling Gaunt Shack, her wand drawn, her eyes fixed on the twisting, cursed air around the old cottage. The wards were ancient — twisted by rage, desperation, and a fragment of my own former madness.
It was almost nostalgic.
Dust swirled around me as I raised my small hand, fingers performing precise, razor-sharp wandless gestures. Runes sparked in the air like dying stars. The curses hissed, resisting me — refusing to bow to anyone but the Dark Lord who cast them.
Unfortunately for them…
I was him.
A soft whisper left my lips:
"Finite… Anima Maledictus."
The air shuddered. The shack groaned. The curse shattered like glass — centuries of dark magic exploding in a ripple of black mist.
I approached the ring.
Marvolo Gaunt's foul little treasure. A Horcrux made by hands that were brilliant yet broken — a fragment of my stolen soul trapped in filth and memory.
The Resurrection Stone pulsed with cold hunger.
I slipped it onto my finger.
Darkness stabbed into my chest — agony ripping through every strand of my spiritual core. My knees hit the floor. Teeth clenched. My very soul felt like molten lava pouring through a shattered hourglass.
Then—
A scream.My scream?Tom's scream?Both.
And then silence.
When I rose…
I was more whole.The fractured edges of my mind no longer scraped and bled against one another. Riddle and I were no longer two voices competing for dominance.
We were one will sharpened to a monstrous point.
The ring glittered on my pale hand — a relic of death reclaimed by its rightful master.
Vinda entered cautiously, her boots crunching over debris. She looked at me with awe — and something like fear.
"As expected of our future king," she breathed. "No curse can deny you."
I only smiled.
There was nothing childish about that smile.
With a soft snap of force, the air around us twisted. Shadows bent. And we vanished.
Apparition — effortless.
The world reformed as the cold stone spires of Nurmengard rose around us, looming like the bones of a fallen giant. The fortress of the conquered — and the throne of the rising.
Waiting.
Watching.
Preparing.
Grindelwald himself greeted me on the balcony high above the storm-worn cliffs, his coat fluttering like a dark banner in the wind.
His eyes lingered knowingly on my ring.On my soul burning stronger than ever.
"You continue to defy limits," he said softly. "Good. The world is full of them… and we shall break every last one."
I bowed my head, a gesture of respect—
Not submission.
"England awaits," I whispered.
He smiled. Cold. Visionary. Proud.
"Yes," he agreed. "And soon… we will reshape it."
I looked down at the blackened stone beneath my feet — at the prison that once held a defeated wizard… and now prepared a conqueror reborn.
Five years old.Already a nightmare.Soon — a storm.
England had forgotten the name Tom Marvolo Riddle.
But very soon…
I will remind them.