The night air was cold and sharp, biting into what little flesh clung to the frail body that staggered through the narrow Muggle streets.
Every step sent jolts of pain across limbs that felt both alien and fragile.
His cloak — once black as night and heavy with enchantments — now hung in tatters, torn like rotten paper. It fluttered weakly in the chill wind.
He walked barefoot, unnoticed by the few Muggles who hurried past him, muttering under his breath.
Lord Voldemort — the name that once made even the bravest of wizards tremble — now looked like a beggar. A filthy shadow.
His breath rasped between clenched teeth.
His magic — his very essence — flickered weakly, like a candle guttering in its final moments.
"Pettigrew…" he hissed, the word soaked with venom.
He stopped beneath a broken streetlamp, his eyes — red no longer, now dull and grey — narrowing with rage.
"He failed me."
He leaned heavily against a rusted fence, gasping for air. "He botched the ritual… the fool. The worthless rat."
He spat into the dirt.
A faint hiss of magic accompanied it — but it felt empty, drained.
He clenched his skeletal hands, knuckles whitening. "I should never have trusted him. Never."
Voldemort's memories of the night were fragmented — flashes of fire, of a cauldron burning too bright, of magic screaming like a living thing. He remembered the pain, the unbearable twisting — and then nothing.
When he woke, he was face down in a field of ash.
No servants.
No cauldron.
No Dark Mark in the sky.
Only silence.
He had felt his magical core hollowed out, as if something had carved a hole through his very soul. For the first time in decades, his body felt mortal. Breakable.
And that realization made his rage all the sharper.
He had fled before the Aurors arrived — instinct guiding him. Every burst of Apparition tore through his magic, so he resorted to walking. Long, endless walking. Through woods, through empty villages, through mud and rain and filth.
Hours passed.
And his strength did not return.
Something was wrong.
No matter how much dark energy he tried to summon, how many cursed sigils he drew in the dirt, his power did not grow. It was stagnant — trapped, weakened, crippled.
That thought terrified him.
He clenched his fists again, trembling with fury. "When I find him… I will skin him alive."
Peter Pettigrew had done something wrong.
Something fatal.
And yet… where was Crouch?
His most devoted servant. His loyal infiltrator.
Why had he not come to help?
Had he failed too?
Had he died in the backlash?
The Dark Lord's lips curled. "Then perhaps he deserved it."
He passed a row of parked cars. His legs ached, and his vision swam. He stopped beside a dull red one and leaned on the window for balance.
Then froze.
Because staring back at him in the glass reflection…
wasn't his face.
It was Peter Pettigrew's.
The watery eyes, the ratlike teeth, the sniveling expression.
That face — that weak, disgusting face.
Voldemort stumbled back, breathing hard. "No…"
He rubbed at his face, as if the reflection were lying. But no matter how many times he blinked, the mirror didn't change.
"NO!"
He slammed his hand against the glass. The car alarm blared to life, echoing down the empty street, lights flashing.
He staggered away, clutching his head. "What have you done, you worm?! What have you—"
The truth struck him like a curse.
The ritual had failed — but not completely.
The body he now inhabited was Pettigrew's. Somehow, the ritual's violent collapse had merged them — his soul forcing itself into his servant's body like a parasite clinging to a dying host.
His own body, his reborn vessel… was gone.
And all that remained of Lord Voldemort was trapped inside the body of a coward.
The most feared Dark Lord in history…
imprisoned in the shell of a rat.
An abandoned park lay silent under a gray sky. Rusted swings creaked softly in the wind, and weeds pushed through the cracks in the broken pavement. It was the sort of forgotten place no one visited—perfect for a monster trying to remember what he used to be.
Voldemort sank to the ground beneath a crooked oak, his ragged cloak pooling around him. The air was damp and cold, but he no longer felt such things as ordinary mortals did. He crossed his legs, straightened his spine, and closed his eyes.
He did not need a wand for this.
Occlumency had always been more about discipline than power—about stillness, control, and will. Even a fraction of his old strength was enough.
He steadied his breathing, drawing what little magic he had left into his mind. The noise of the Muggle world faded until only the soft wind remained. Slowly, the world outside dissolved, and Voldemort found himself standing within his mindscape—a black, twisted labyrinth of stone and smoke.
He expected to find something else there—something alien.
A second presence.
The weak, whimpering soul of Peter Pettigrew, trapped like an insect in a jar.
But he found nothing.
There was only himself.
Yet the landscape was wrong. The walls shimmered in patches of gray; reflections of fear, cowardice, and self-loathing pulsed faintly in the corners. Emotions that did not belong to him.
"Impossible," he whispered, his voice echoing through the endless void.
He turned sharply. A flicker of movement—a rat's shadow darting between the cracks.
Voldemort clenched his fists. "Show yourself!"
But there was no answer.
And then… he felt it.
A shiver of fear—not his own.
The kind that froze the blood and made the limbs tremble. The kind that made one think of running, hiding, turning into something small and unnoticeable. Every time a car passed by outside the park, the emotion spiked through his mind like lightning.
He realized, horrified, what it meant.
Peter Pettigrew was not beside him.
He was inside him.
Merged.
Their souls—twisted together like melted metal—were no longer two separate beings. Pettigrew's cowardice, his instincts, his memories… all had bled into Voldemort's own.
He clutched his head, his voice a low snarl.
"No… no, this cannot be."
Flashes came unbidden—memories that were not his:
A boy with watery eyes begging Sirius Black to forgive him.
A trembling hand offering the location of the Potters to the Dark Lord.
A filthy sewer. The smell of damp fur. The taste of crumbs stolen from the floor.
"STOP!" Voldemort screamed, and the mindscape shattered like glass.
He gasped, snapping back into his body in the park, drenched in sweat.
His body was shaking—not from weakness, but from disgust.
The fear. The filth. The cowardice. They clung to him like a curse.
Even his thoughts flickered between fury and panic, the two halves warring for control.
For the first time in his life, Voldemort—the feared Dark Lord—felt something like claustrophobia inside his own mind.
Every sound made him twitch—every passing car sent a flash of dread through him before he forced it down with rage.
Hours later, the flicker of lanterns appeared ahead. A pub. Hidden between two shabby London buildings.
The Leaky Cauldron.
Voldemort straightened his cloak, pulling the hood low over his disfigured—no, Pettigrew's—face. His movements were deliberate. Measured. The weakness in his magical core made Apparition risky; he couldn't afford to draw attention.
He slipped inside, head down, ignoring the curious glances. No one recognized him—the face he wore was too pathetic for anyone to look twice.
Through the pub, into the courtyard. He tapped the bricks with what little magic he could summon. The archway to Diagon Alley unfolded before him, glowing faintly under the moonlight.
He walked quickly, keeping to the edges, past bright shopfronts and bustling crowds. The light and laughter of Diagon Alley made his skin crawl.
He turned down a shadowed path, where the cobblestones were cracked and the air stank of damp rot and dark magic.
Knockturn Alley.
Every step he took there was like stepping back into the past—into his world.
He stopped before the grimy sign of Borgin and Burkes, the shop that had once traded freely in cursed relics and dangerous power.
The bell gave a low, reluctant chime as he entered.
Inside, behind the counter, Borgin looked up from a ledger, blinking at the cloaked figure.
"Can I… help you, sir?" the man asked, his oily smile flickering.
Voldemort's hood tilted up slightly, revealing sharp, familiar eyes gleaming in the dark.
"I seek your help, Borgin."
Mr. Borgin peered suspiciously at him over a crooked pair of glasses. "You and half of Knockturn Alley," he muttered. "If it's gold you want to sell or buy, I'll—"
Voldemort's voice cut through like a whip. "It is not gold I offer. It is power."
Borgin's expression froze.
The stranger's tone was wrong—too commanding, too venomous for a beggar. But when Voldemort lifted his hand to reveal the Dark Mark faintly branded on the borrowed flesh of Peter Pettigrew, Borgin's eyes widened in disbelief.
"Impossible…" he whispered. "He—he's dead."
Voldemort smiled thinly, though it trembled with exhaustion. "Am I?"
He tried to summon a spark of his old magic—an echo of the Dark Mark's pain curse. But instead of a surge of power, only a dull ache rippled through his weak arm. The magic sputtered and died. Voldemort's teeth clenched in fury; his body trembled with the effort.
Borgin's confusion turned to cold skepticism. "You expect me to believe you're the Dark Lord, when you can barely stand?"
Voldemort's voice rose, sharp and filled with venom. "You doubt me? Think, Borgin! There are things only we two would know."
The old shopkeeper frowned, uncertain.
Voldemort took a slow step forward, his shadow stretching across the counter. "When I was a young man, before the world knew my name, I worked for you. You sent me to a woman named Hepzibah Smith—to purchase two items she would not sell. I brought you one."
Borgin's eyes went wide.
"The Hufflepuff Cup," Voldemort continued, voice low and cold. "Do you remember how she died, Borgin? Do you remember the story we told the Ministry together—that a house elf poisoned her wine?"
The room fell silent.
Borgin's breath hitched. The color drained from his face as recognition—and terror—settled in.
Only he and Tom Riddle had known that story.
Voldemort straightened as best he could, expecting submission, fear, reverence. The return of loyalty.
But what he saw instead… was rage.
"You think I should be happy to see you?" Borgin spat, wand flicking up in his shaking hand. "You think I'd kneel again? After years of living in fear of you—your curses, your whims, your insanity?"
Voldemort froze. "You dare—"
"Crucio!"
The curse hit him square in the chest.
Pain—real, mortal pain—exploded through him. Every nerve caught fire. He fell to the ground screaming, muscles twisting, fingers clawing at the floor.
Borgin's teeth bared in savage satisfaction. "How does it feel, my Lord? How does your own medicine taste?"
Voldemort gasped, trembling violently. "Y-you will—pay—"
"Crucio!" Borgin shouted again, louder this time, his voice shaking with years of bottled fear.
Voldemort's mind fractured with agony. His magic—too weak, too broken—couldn't even form a shield. He could feel Pettigrew's cowardly instincts screaming within him, urging him to flee.
And for once… he listened.
With the last ounce of strength left in the miserable body he inhabited, he twisted and shrank, bones crunching, skin tightening—
—and in a blink, a small gray rat scurried under the counter and out the door.
Borgin's curse hit the wall, scorching it black.
He ran to the door, wand raised, but the alley outside was already filled with witches and wizards going about their dark trades. The rat was gone—vanished into the maze of shadows.
In the filth of Knockturn Alley, hidden among the gutters, Voldemort—no longer a man but a trembling rat—cowered beneath a pile of rotting cloth.
His body shook with fury. Shame burned deeper than any curse. His own servant had tortured him—and lived.
His breathing was ragged, his thoughts spiraling between rage and humiliation.
Without his strength, without his power…
even his followers would kill him.
For the first time since his fall, Voldemort understood what it meant to be truly weak—
and the knowledge filled him with a cold, murderous resolve.
He would rebuild.
He would learn.
He would reclaim what was his.
And when he returned… Borgin would be the first to die screaming.
Author's Note:
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