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Voldemort awoke with a start, looking up at a different ceiling than before. He was in a new room, clearly not in the master bedroom in Malfoy Manor, but in a much dirtier room. Whoever had the gall to move this would feel his wrath, this he promised.
As Voldemort tried to look around, he found that he couldn't really move his body. For most people this would be a concern, but not for him. He was Lord Voldemort, the greatest Dark Lord in history. He had instilled fear into the hearts of millions and slaughtered all in his path .. with only 2 exceptions. If either of those exceptions were here, he would destroy them - there was simply no other possible outcome. The fact he couldn't move was irrelevant to this, he had other options. Even in the worst case scenario, he could escape as a spirit and simply be resurrected again. It was not the option that Voldemort would prefer to take, but it was always available to him.
All around him was darkness, but suddenly there was a small amount of green. Two glowing green balls - eyes - stared at him. Voldemort immediately knew who this was, and knew that tonight this would end. He would finally be killing the insolent child who had defied him for so many years. All he needed to do was bide his time as he worked to bypass the magical stasis.
Harry Potter stepped fully into view, looking much better than he had when they last met. To be fair, they last met at his resurrection where the boy had already been tired out by the maze and seeing Cedric Diggory get murdered by Wormtail. The fact Potter had escaped him then and spread the word of his return had been a disaster, but the Ministry had thankfully refused to believe it. Lucius had the Minister in his pocket, and therefore could keep them aimed at Dumbledore.
Idly, Voldemort wondered what had happened to Lucius. He had somehow been taken from Malfoy Manor after all. If they got to him, then they could easily have gotten to Lucius, Narcissa or Bellatrix. Voldemort hoped that Lucius was still alive, simply due to how useful he was .. and because he would need some time under the cruciatus for having clearly ineffective defences.
"Hello Tom." said Harry Potter, calm as anything. The boy looked much happier than he had any right to be, and wearing more expensive looking muggle clothes than the rags he had been in prior.
"POTTER! I don't know how you did this, but when I get out I shall destroy you!" Voldemort hissed, anger at the boys lack of fear.
Harry smiled at him, not looking the least bit distressed by him "I'd say it's nice to see you again - but it's not." he replied, before pausing. Then after a second he continued "Well actually I am happy to see you, but not for reasons you'd like. But enough about that. I think it's time you and I had a chat - face to face."
Voldemort's eyes narrowed at this "Of course, Harry Potter, of course. Let us talk about how I shall kill you like I killed your mudblood mother and blood traitor father, and how I shall slaughter your friends and everyone you care about. You act calm, but I know you fear me boy, just like this entire society fears me. I shall destroy you."
Harry yawned, angering Voldemort further "Boring. Let me tell you a story, Tom. A story from the muggle world."
Voldemort went to open his mouth, but found he couldn't. Potter hadn't done it, so someone else was here. Someone else hidden in the darkness.
"Obviously you know about the Second World War, the muggle conflict fought in the 1940's all over the world. I know you know as I looked up your history, Wool's Orphanage right? You grew up right in the middle of the blitz, bombs dropping daily as you struggled to survive. I guess that's why your so obsessed with immortality." Harry said, shrugging at the end. "But in the east, Nazi Germany faced off with the Soviet Union. Germans and Russians slaughtering each other in the millions, as well as every poor soul caught in-between. But the slaughter left a lot of dead bodies, and with livestock being eaten for food it meant that the local wolves were starving. The wolves started eating the dead. They grew to like it. They got hungrier. Soon enough reports were heard of wolves attacking soldiers in the midst of battle, dragging away screaming men to be eaten alive. Naturally being wild beasts they didn't really care about the whole Nazi and Communist divide, or about sides in the war. Every human was just food for them to eat."
Harry paused, then looked Voldemort dead in the eyes "Eventually though they got too greedy, drew to much attention. A brief truce was declared along part of the front, and the Nazi's and Soviet's hunted down and slaughtered the wolves in the thousands. Two sides that completely hated each other decided that someone else was so bad that they would work together to destroy them, before going back to destroying each other. To this day wolves are an extremely rare sight in Europe."
As Harry was monologuing, Voldemort tried to take advantage of the opportunity. The brat had looked him right in the eyes, and he was a master legilimens. This should allow him to easily launch an attack on his mind and work out what was done to him. He could even use it to mentally torture the boy and buy himself the time to escape. However despite all his experience and skill he got nowhere. No matter how hard he tried he just wasn't able to even get a simple legilimens probe off.
His magic was being blocked. At this point Voldemort felt a slight trace of fear, before ruthlessly crushing it. He was the most powerful Dark Lord in the world - he knew he could escape this.
"Now admittedly this story might not be true. I've only heard it, and seen no evidence of it actually occurring. But that doesn't matter - what matters is the lesson the story teaches us. Sometimes hated enemies can put aside their differences, even temporarily, to deal with a bigger problem ... and you Tom ... your most certainly a bigger problem." Harry finished.
Voldemort hissed in anger once again, and as he opened his mouth found he could speak again "You dare try to teach me a lesson, boy! I shall crush you."
Harry smiled "I think you have bigger problems than a simple lesson Tom. MUCH bigger problems. Why don't you look down?"
Voldemort stilled at this, and tried to do so but couldn't. He could see Potter briefly frown before coming to a realisation. The boy looked to his left, into the darkness and said something. Whatever he said was silenced, but a second later Voldemort could finally move his head enough to look around. As he looked down however, his eyes widened in horror. His body was not how it had been last night, or how it had been these past few months. It was from before ...
"Yes Tom, your back to being a baby again. De-ageing potions mixed with runic magic and a few other things have gotten you back to your real age - that of a baby."
"I am not a baby." Voldemort growled out, with as much venom in his voice as possible.
"Technically true, but you sure do act like one. Babies can't help but put random rubbish in their mouths and then spit it out again. You drink unicorn blood and spit out utter nonsense about being a champion of pureblood supremacy. Clearly your a baby. You never grew up. You never had a mother to raise you." Harry taunted.
Voldemort's eyes widened in shock.
Potter grinned before leaning forward slightly "That's right. I know all about Merope Gaunt. The poor little squib who used love potions on a muggle and produced the most rotten excuse of a baby the world had ever seen - and then she immediately died. In a way she sacrificed her life for you, and how did you repay her? By wiping out the rest of your family, supporting the very cause that trapped her in that life and forgot her. Honestly it's amazing how far you got whilst hiding the fact your parents were a muggle and a heavily inbred squib. Now I don't care about your lineage or about blood purity in the slightest, but I know your followers do."
Voldemort immediately responded before the brat could continue "You think you could change their minds by telling them? Go ahead Potter, and watch it fail. Their loyalty is not just based out of ideology but respect and fear. They would never betray me."
Harry looked at him for all of 2 seconds before stating "Igor Karkaroff, Regulus Black, Severus Snape. All three are Death Eaters, all three betrayed you. Yes, even Snape. I know he gave you some excuses but he's actually trying to get revenge on you for my mother's death. Don't worry about trying to get revenge on him though, I'll be doing that instead once I'm finished with you."
"You cannot defeat me, I am immortal."
Harry nodded "True. You are immortal - and I plan to keep it that way."
That caused Voldemort to stop moving, confused.
"See, I was raised as an orphan as well - as you know. I grew up with my mother's relatives, the Dursley's. They basically treated me as a House Elf, complete with living in a cupboard. Like you I didn't have any positive role models growing up. At Hogwarts though I made friends - Hagrid, Hedwig, Ron, Hermione, Neville ... and I got inspired. Inspired to do the right thing, stand up for the little guy. To try and help where I can, and to help people achieve their dreams - and that's why I'm here. You want to be immortal, so I'll help you be so."
Voldemort laughed "Silly boy, I already am immortal."
Harry nodded "Yeah I know. Horcruxes, right?"
At that Voldemort could only gape, feeling a cold dread wash over him. Nobody was supposed to know about the horcruxes - how could he have found out? Maybe Dumbledore suspected, maybe he had traced it all the way back to Horace Slughorn, or maybe ... Lucius. Another reason to torture him again, even if he had already done so. Voldemort had very much been displeased when he had learned that Lucius had gotten the diary destroyed at Hogwarts when it was supposed to be kept safe. Now Lucius' incompetence had given his enemies an opportunity.
"I know about your horcruxes. Every. Last. One. As you probably figured, the Diary was first. I destroyed that with the fang of your basilisk that I also killed. Recently though I repaired it and got to read your private thoughts. You had notes on founder's objects, and that helped me to find the rest. Diadem of Rowena Ravenclaw, Cup of Helga Hufflepuff, Locket of Salazar Slytherin and the Gaunt family ring. I found them and got all of them. A few fun facts for you though - Regulus Black stole the Locket and replaced it with a fake, the real one had been in the possession of a crazy House Elf for the past 15 years. Also the Gaunt ring? Yeah that contained the resurrection stone. Now that was a shock, but not as much of a shock as the realisation that you got all these super powerful magical artefacts and used them as trophies to hide your soul in. What a waste."
Voldemort took a deep breath. Okay, he was stuck as a baby and most of his horcruxes had been found. But not all was lost yet - he still had options. But just as he continued to try to plan, his nemesis dropped another bombshell.
"Oh yeah we dealt with the snake as well. Nagini isn't dead though. My new ally figured out that Nagini used to be an actual human woman, cursed to forever be a snake. She wanted to break it, but that lady had been a snake so long that her human mind had degenerated. She has pretty much become a snake mentally as well, and one that liked human flesh. We put her out of her misery, of course. Lastly there was one final one, that you never knew about: Me. You made me a proto-horcrux back in 81', it's why I can speak Parseltongue and have that mental link with you."
"Impossible, horcruxes can only be intentionally made." Voldemort cried out, horrified at this.
Harry shrugged "Well most people only make one horcrux. Actually most people are sane and smart enough to not even bother, or don't even know of horcruxes in the first place. But your a special breed of stupid. If you was to crack a piece of glass and take a fragment away it would lead to lasting damage. If you take several pieces away, then more might fall off on their own. That's basically what happened with your soul. You abused it so much that pieces are dropping off you. It's honestly really sad."
Voldemort could only stare in muted horror, unable to react.
Harry smiled again "But regardless, it's okay. Because I'm here to fix things and make you truly immortal. Firstly, my ally figured out how to transfer horcruxes from one object to another so thankfully the artefacts you corrupted could be saved. I decided to put them in cheap muggle replica's of the original objects, as you can see yourself!"
With that the darkness disappeared, the room lit up in light. Voldemort could finally see the room around him, and noted several things. Firstly, he was in a muggle-like cot which was covered in runes glowing with magic, with him also restrained to it. Secondly, the room they were in had several ritual circles surrounding him in several rings, with several smaller ritual rings bisecting between the larger rings. He couldn't see the entire ritual but whatever it was, it was clearly very complicated.
The last things he noticed was what else was in the room. A blonde woman, a House Elf and in some of the smaller rings several pillars stood going up to the cot's height - and on each pillar was a horcrux. As Potter had said, they had been replaced with muggle look-alikes. The Diadem's replacement was a child's princess tiara, the Cup was now a baby bottle. Voldemort could feel his soul pieces inside these children's objects, and felt a mixture of anger, horror and utter humiliation at what he could see.
As he looked around the blonde woman approached, standing next to Potter.
"This is my new ally - Daphne Greengrass. You'd recognise her family of course, her father recently joined your ranks. I'll let her speak to you quickly."
Daphne Greengrass truly looked as posh as any noble pureblood would, and with a sneer to match. Voldemort knew of her existence, but had never met her before personally. Her father however he knew.
Cyrus Greengrass had remained neutral in the first war, but discreetly supported the cause. Voldemort had allowed his cowardice simply because Cyrus illicitly supplied them with resources for the war effort. Information from him had been crucial in the slaughter of the McKinnon's and in finding the Longbottom's. But in this new war Voldemort had demanded full loyalty, and for the more cowardly supporters to finally take the dark mark. Not only two weeks ago Cyrus had done so after brutally murdering a muggle child.
The fact that the daughter of one of his followers opposed him only made him angrier.
Daphne herself looked nothing like her father. Whereas he was a brunette, and quite tall his daughter was the opposite. She was even shorter than Potter somehow, and was blonde with icy blue eyes. Over the previous summer, he'd overheard Draco Malfoy refer to her as the 'Ice Queen of Slytherin'. Personally Voldemort found it to be a disgusting nickname. Only he lorded over Slytherin's, not some weak little girl.
Daphne opened her mouth, and started speaking "Tom Riddle, you disgust me. To think I ever respected you." as Voldemort's eyes widened in increased anger she continued "I support pureblood supremacy, because it's simply a fact. I support it because it's true. The muggles are simply animals, and the mudbloods aren't much better. But whilst I don't think much of them, I still think they should exist. They deserve to live, if even to be an example to show our people that life could be worse and we could be without magic, crawling in the dirt. I prefer that we simply keep away from them, and if need be control them to prevent our destruction. You on the other hand want only destruction, and not just for the muggles. You would destroy us all. I suspected it before, but once Harry showed me the truth of who you are that confirmed it for me. If you cared so much about purebloods then why did so many lines get wiped out in the last war? Why did the Prewetts and the McKinnons get driven to extinction? Why have you not continued the Gaunt line, and instead mutilated yourself into literally being a snake? The answer is simple: Because you are a snake, but not the true Slytherin type of snake. You are one that would stab anyone in the back simply because you can. Not only that, because you always planned to stab them all in the back anyway."
"You truly believe the lies of Potter and Dumbledore? You are a blood traitor, girl. You shall also die, and your father shall suffer for your betrayal." Voldemort retorted.
Daphne ignored him, continuing on as if he hadn't interrupted in the first place "Even with my issues with you, I didn't plan to stand against you. Because until I started working with Harry, I only suspected you were a poison. I was however willing to let you continue simply because I believed it would help ensure pureblood supremacy forever. But then your followers dragged my sister into this mess." now Daphne looked furious "My cowardly father sold her off to Malfoy to be Draco's bride, and he plans to sell me off to Nott. All to show his loyalty to you. I will not let my sister suffer at the hands of Draco Malfoy, and I will not be Theodore Nott's toy. But if I was to stop them by whatever means necessary, that would mean I'd end up against you. So if I want to deal with them, and also save our society, then you have to go."
Harry patted Daphne on her shoulder, before looking back at Voldemort. "You remember that lesson from earlier? This was the point of it. Daphne here is a pureblood supremacist, maybe not the violent murderous sort like your scum but she certainly supports many of the same beliefs. I'm quite the opposite. I like most muggles - excluding my relatives - and of course I support muggleborns. One of my best friends is one after all. The two of us are pretty much on opposite sides of the political divide, but then a greater problem arises and we put that aside to deal with it."
"and how can you trust one another? There is only power, and those too weak to seek it. Trust and loyalty will see one of you betray the other."
Daphne shook her head "That would be true, except our alliance is magically binding. We made a magical contract about this. We literally cannot betray the other, and will help each other deal with not just you but also your Death Eater scum. It's perfect."
At this Potter winced slightly "Well I wouldn't say it's perfect."
At this Daphne blushed. At Voldemort's look of confusion, Harry clarified "Look, we asked that crazy House Elf I mentioned earlier to make the contract for us. Told him all the necessary stuff we needed in it. He served the House of Black, and we were both busy as were the other House Elves. We only done a brief check over when we got it as we were both eager to deal with you quickly, and it had everything we asked for. Problem was that Kreacher had intentionally made all that as part of a marriage contract, a full on soul-bonded marriage contract."
Voldemort couldn't help but feel disgusted. He knew of soul-bonds, as he had extensively studied soul magic. In theory it could be a method of immortality if done right, but it required love - or at least a romantic/sexual attraction. He found both of those to be disgusting, and disliked the fact that truly forged soul-bonds bound together not just the souls but mind and magic as well. Voldemort refused to share his power with anyone.
"But at the same time, whilst it wasn't part of the plan it made things much easier for us. An accidental marriage contract was the perfect excuse as to why we spent a lot of time together. The soul-binding part however ensured that we both know the other will never betray us, and gave us an extra path by which to trap you with." Harry explained.
Voldemort snarled in anger "TRAP ME? DO YOU TRULY THINK YOU COULD EVER CONTAIN ME? I'VE ESCAPED DEATH ITSELF!"
Harry smiled "Yes you did, and now you're trapped as a baby. You see, we're in the Chamber of Secrets. Daph and I have done some ... extensive modifications ... but it's still a very hidden chamber. There's only a few people who know where it is - or there was. We've made a series of magical bindings and wards, both runic and otherwise, to hide this place from the world. My friends don't remember this place, despite one of them literally coming in here. It's now faded from legend. Even Albus Dumbledore has no knowledge of it anymore. The only people left who know of this chamber are the three of us ... and Dobby .... and Hedwig - but otherwise it's just us."
At this point Daphne spoke up again "Several variants of fidelius protection went into hiding the chamber, but not just that. Parselmagic, blood magic, sacrificial, spiritual, and many of the other magics of old. Due to the contract, we ended up adding soul-binding protections for this place as well. Only people who are part of, or connected to our soul-bond can enter or exit the chamber."
"All of this is powered by the ley-lines that run beneath Hogwarts. With the chamber fully sealed off, and an effectively infinite power source. It'll only fail when the sun expands and destroys the Earth in around five billion years." Harry explained, continuing "However, that's not all."
Voldemort wasn't speaking, letting them explain their plan.
"Much of the runic circles and ritual magics are actually targeted at you. In part it's to keep you contained - trapped as a baby, unable to use magic with or without a wand, anti-apparition etcetera. The other part is to hide you, as in your existence as a whole."
At this Voldemort finally spoke up "What?" he whispered.
Harry and Daphne grinned at him.
"Imagine hiding the existence of Voldemort from the world - Tom Riddle too. Everyone forgets about you. Everyone forgets about your reign of terror. The Death Eaters would collapse overnight, just like in the last war. That isn't enough though, not to deal with you." Daphne said gleefully.
Harry chuckled "True, after all Tom there is still one person who'd remember - You."
At this moment Voldemort realised what they were planning.
"You're going to make me forget myself." He stated calmly, although internally he was freaking out. His internal freak out worsened when the Potter's nodded happily in response.
"Think about it, if nobody remembers you then they can't harm you - it helps you remain immortal. If you remembered though, you might escape enough to be able to undo your horcruxes and die that way. If you forget then you can't do that, and you'll get to live forever." Harry said.
Daphne hummed. "I think we've explained enough. Even with what's about to happen to him, telling him any more is still a risk."
Harry nodded, before looking back to Voldemort. "Well, then this is goodbye Tom. For our last meeting it sure was a good one, and I hope you suffer for the next five billion years."
The couple then exited the runic circles, ignoring Voldemort's shouting.
"No! You can't do this! Potter! Stop right now! Potter! I'm the Greatest Dark Lord in history, the terror that haunts the country! I WILL NOT GO DOWN LIKE THIS!" Voldemort screamed in rage.
Harry and Daphne put their wands to one runic symbol and activated it together, thereby activating the entire system.
Voldemort tried desperately to move, but his baby body could barely do so. He had to get out of here as fast as possible, but all his ideas wouldn't work. He just had to- ...... He didn't know. In fact, he didn't know who he was, or what he was.
As this creature experienced confusion, it tried to piece together who it was from it's severely damaged mind - however, trying to look into who it was only produced the impossibility that it was an emptiness, a nothingness, an impossibility that existed and yet didn't. It's mind couldn't work against the power of fidelius magic, and couldn't exist with itself as is. It was an anomaly with no answer, and no escape.
All it could do is scream.
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Over to the side, Harry and Daphne watched silently, holding hands. They'd put up the final defences so Voldemort couldn't see beyond his cot. They watched as his mind quickly broke as he failed to recall his own existence.
"Do you think this'll end the war?" Daphne asked.
Harry nodded. "Yeah, although it won't end our issues."
Whilst their marriage contract did invalidate the Nott's getting Daphne, they'd still deal with them regardless. That had been a condition of their alliance after all - the Nott's and Malfoy's would die. When Voldemort had been captured the Malfoy's had been killed off, so the Nott's were all that was left.
The marriage itself hadn't been the plan, but Harry felt it would work out. If there wasn't any romantic or sexual attraction between himself and Daphne, then that part of the contract would never have activated. It wasn't what either had planned, and they certainly disagreed about politics, but with some effort he knew they could make it work. He also knew that Daphne felt the same.
In the end, the war ended before it'd really began. The Death Eaters fell apart, and the Nott's all mysteriously died in the middle of it. The Ministry didn't know why it had been targeting Harry Potter, so they stopped.
Harry and Daphne would eventually marry and have many kids. In the process Daphne would mellow out and become much more moderate in her beliefs. They would die of old age over a century later, and their descendants would continue living day to day.
In all that time, over the next five billion years the creature formerly known as Voldemort would continue living in an eternal existential nightmare with no form of release. That was until the sun expanded and consumed the Earth. It was at that moment that the runes and rituals would break, as would the horcruxes.
Voldemort would remember himself, and die known to nobody.
(and then he went to magic hell because he'd still done loads of evil things.)