Chapter 1: A Disgusting Joke of a Resurrection
What did death feel like?
For Tom Marvolo Riddle, the concept had long been stripped of its terror. He had butchered his own soul, carved it into pieces, and held mortality in the palm of his hand like a cheap plaything.
But this time was different.
That blinding, sickening flash of green light. Harry Potter's infuriatingly defiant face. The violent, unnatural tremor of the Elder Wand as it rejected his command, turning its catastrophic power back upon its wielder. In the end, the noise and the fury simply dissolved into an endless, suffocating void.
'I am Voldemort... I am eternal...'
Tom muttered the words into the darkness, his consciousness clinging to the absolute refusal to fade.
Then, the silence shattered.
[Of course, dear! Would you like to try again?]
The voice exploded directly inside his mind. It was sickeningly bright, aggressively cheerful, and possessed the artificial cadence of a Muggle television salesman peddling washing powder.
'Of course... of course I want to try again!'
Tom did not hesitate. The Dark Lord would never surrender a final chance at life, no matter how bizarre the source offering it.
[But, there will be a small price to pay.]
A price?
Tom sneered into the void. For the sake of immortality, for the absolute domination of the wizarding world, he had already paid prices that would break the minds of lesser men. He had shed his humanity, his handsome features, his very soul. If he could start over, he would pay anything.
'Fine. I do not care.'
The moment the thought formed, a sharp, splitting agony drove like a spike through his skull.
Air rushed into his lungs. Along with it came a scent that violently dragged him back to the deepest, most detested recesses of his memory. The heavy, moldy dampness of peeling wallpaper. The sharp chemical sting of cheap soapy water. The lingering stench of overboiled cabbage and the distinct, sour odor of rotting wooden floorboards.
Tom snapped his eyes open.
He did not see the fiery pits of hell. He did not see the terrified, groveling faces of his Death Eaters. Instead, his vision focused on a mottled, gray ceiling, complete with a precarious spiderweb clinging to the cracked plaster in the corner.
He tried to sit up. The movement was sluggish, his limbs feeling incredibly heavy and entirely wrong, as if his consciousness had been forcefully stuffed into a skin that did not fit the shape of his soul.
"Nagini?" he called out, the word a tentative test of his surroundings.
The sound that left his lips froze the blood in his veins.
It was not his voice. It was not the hoarse, cold, sibilant hiss that commanded armies and struck terror into the hearts of millions. It was a crisp, youthful, undeniably soft sound. The groggy, delicate voice of a child who had just woken from a nap.
Tom Riddle stiffly raised his hand into his line of sight.
The hand was tiny. The skin was pale to the point of translucence, tracing the faint blue veins beneath. The knuckles were slender and smooth, completely devoid of the heavy calluses earned from decades of gripping a wand. The flesh was pristine, showing absolutely no signs of the withered, serpentine corruption brought on by extreme Dark Magic.
This was the hand of a child.
'Possession? Soul attachment?'
The analytical mind of a Dark Arts master immediately went to work. His first logical conclusion was that his wandering spirit had unintentionally hijacked the body of some unlucky bystander. It was a plausible theory; after all, his Horcruxes were scattered across the country.
Fighting through a wave of intense dizziness, he swung his legs over the edge of the rusty iron bed frame. His bare feet hit the freezing, grimy floorboards.
The room was suffocatingly small. It held two narrow beds, the other stripped bare and empty. Beyond the single, grime-caked window lay a depressing expanse of gray sky and endless rows of identical, soot-stained brick houses, entirely devoid of any aesthetic value.
The scene was damnably familiar.
Wool's Orphanage.
The miserable, squalid cage that had imprisoned his entire childhood before Albus Dumbledore arrived in 1938.
"Merlin's beard..." Tom cursed under his breath, the soft, childish voice still jarring against his ears.
He pushed himself off the mattress, his small bare feet slapping against the cold wood as he walked quickly toward the corner of the room. A full-length mirror stood there, its surface cloudy and missing a jagged chunk at the bottom right.
He needed to see exactly what he was working with. If he had possessed some random, unknown orphan, he would need to calculate a method to recover his magical core immediately. Then, he would slaughter every miserable Muggle in this building and burn this hellhole to the ground.
He stepped in front of the glass.
For the first time in his existence, the fearsome Dark Lord felt a chill far more terrifying than death crawl slowly up his spine.
A girl stared back at him from the mirror.
She looked to be about eleven years old. She was drowning in an oversized, faded gray linen nightgown that hung off her narrow shoulders like a sack.
But the clothes were irrelevant. The face commanded all attention.
It was a face so exquisite it practically demanded the world stop and stare. Long, glossy black hair cascaded down her back like liquid obsidian, reaching all the way to her waist. Her skin was flawless, as fair and delicate as the most expensive bone china.
And then there were the eyes. Those dark, bottomless obsidian eyes he had always been so proud of. They were there, but they were framed by thick lashes and set into a face that radiated an aura of absolute, pitiable harmlessness.
It was still Tom Riddle's face. It held the exact bone structure of his youth, the very same features that had once effortlessly charmed countless Hogwarts professors and enamored foolish witches.
But this was a female version of him.
"This... what kind of disgusting joke is this?"
Tom's small, pale hand trembled violently as he reached up to touch his throat. Smooth skin. No Adam's apple.
He dragged his trembling hands further down his body, pressing against the linen fabric. Nothing.
Just as Tom raised his fingers, fully intending to pinch his own arm to force himself awake from this humiliating nightmare, that same cheerful, piercingly bright mechanical voice exploded inside his skull once more.
[Welcome to the Virtue System! This system is dedicated to saving and rehabilitating every antisocial personality!]
[Host: Tom Marvolo Riddle]
[Current Status: Weak / Female Body / Minor]
[Current Time: July 24, 1991]
[Current Location: London, Wool's Orphanage]
"Who is speaking? Get out of my head!"
Tom's instincts took over. He subconsciously reached for the magic deep within his core, intending to lash out with a devastating Legilimency strike against the intruder.
Nothing happened.
The vast, terrifying ocean of dark magic he had commanded for decades was gone. In its place was a dried-up well, offering only a pathetic, microscopic trickle of magical energy.
[I am your auxiliary system! Given that the host committed a multitude of horrific evils in his previous life, and considering your soul is currently shattered into pieces, this system adheres strictly to the core principles of 'Love and Peace' to grant you a second chance at life!]
[The price for this resurrection is simple: You must start over in this world. You will repair your fractured soul and unlock your magical power by accumulating 'Virtue Points' through good deeds!]
[Warm reminder: This physical vessel is the 'Body of Supreme Goodness,' carefully tailored for you by the system. Please cherish it and use it to spread joy!]
"Body of Supreme Goodness?"
Tom stared at the frail, delicate little girl in the mirror. A dark, vicious laugh bubbled up from his chest, fueled by absolute, unadulterated rage.
"I will kill whoever I want! I am Lord Voldemort! Do you honestly believe a pathetic parlor trick like this can trap me?"
Bang.
The heavy wooden door to the bedroom burst open, slamming violently against the wall.
A bloated, middle-aged woman marched into the room. She wore a stained, heavy apron and carried a sloshing tin bucket of dirty water. She was the orphanage administrator. She was not the Mrs. Cole of his memory, but her sour, deeply lined face looked exactly as repulsive.
"Tamara! Look at the time! Are you still standing there staring at yourself in the mirror?" the woman barked, her coarse voice grating against Tom's ears. "Get out there and scrub the hallway clean! Today is the day someone from that damned freak school or whatever is coming. Do not embarrass me, you lazy girl!"
Tamara?
Was that his name now?
A dangerous, crimson light flashed deep within Tom's dark eyes. His jaw locked so tightly his teeth ground together.
This filthy, lowly Muggle dared to order him around? Dared to speak to him in such a tone?
Pure, concentrated murderous intent churned violently in his chest. He did not have his yew wand, but that hardly mattered. He was a master of the Dark Arts. He knew countless variations of wandless magic. Even with only this pathetic sliver of magic flowing through his new veins, it would be child's play to scramble this Muggle's brain into a vegetative state, or simply crush her windpipe and watch her suffocate on the floor.
"Cruci..."
Tom raised his slender, delicate hand. He pointed his small fingertips directly at the woman's broad chest, silently drawing upon his hatred to fuel his favorite Unforgivable Curse.
[Warning! Strong murderous intent and malicious attack behavior detected!]
[Violation of Virtue Guidelines: Rule One — Do not harm the innocent.]
[Initiating punishment: Level One Electric Shock.]
Before the meager trickle of magic could even reach his fingertips, a bizarre, invisible current slammed into him. It surged through his entire body in a fraction of a second.
It was not painful. It did not tear at his nerve endings or make his bones feel as though they were on fire.
Instead, it brought a sudden, overwhelming wave of numbing weakness. The strength instantly evaporated from his muscles. His knees buckled, barely keeping him upright.
Immediately following the weakness, an uncontrollable, humiliating heat rushed up his neck and exploded across his cheeks, painting them a bright, flushed pink. His heart began to hammer violently against his ribs, and his breathing fractured into rapid, disordered, shallow gasps.
"You..." Tom forced his mouth to move. He wanted to say: You filthy ant, get away from me before I flay you alive.
But as the words left his lips, betrayed by the lingering effects of the shock and the physiological reactions of the 'Body of Supreme Goodness', his voice emerged thin as a thread. It was incredibly soft, painfully weak, and carried a distinct, pathetic tremor, sounding exactly like a frightened little girl on the verge of tears.
"You... don't come over..."
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