Chapter 1: Reborn, but with a Small Price to Pay
What did death feel like?
For Tom Marvolo Riddle, death was no stranger.
He had torn his soul apart again and again, and treated the boundary between life and oblivion as something he could toy with. Yet this time was different. That cursed green light, Harry Potter's nauseating face, and the Elder Wand trembling as it betrayed him in his own hand, then everything collapsed into nothing at all.
"I am Lord Voldemort… I am eternal…"
He whispered it like a vow he could force the universe to obey.
Then, in the very next second, a voice burst inside his skull.
[Of course, dear, would you like to try again?]
Light. Bright. It had the chirpy tone of a Muggle television advert, all cheer and false friendliness.
Of course.
Of course he wanted to try again.
"Of course… of course I want to try again!" Tom answered, not aloud, but with the full weight of his will.
[But there will be a small price to pay.]
A price?
He almost laughed.
For immortality, for dominion over the wizarding world, he had paid with blood, sanity, and the pieces of his own soul. If he could begin again, he would pay anything.
"Fine. I do not care."
The headache hit immediately, sharp and splitting, and with it came a smell so foul it made his stomach twist. Damp mould. Cheap soap. Overboiled cabbage. The rot of old wooden floorboards soaked with years of neglect.
A scent he loathed from the depths of memory.
Tom snapped his eyes open.
He did not see hellfire. He did not see Death Eaters grovelling in terror.
He saw a mottled grey ceiling, stained with age, with a spiderweb clinging to one corner as if even the spiders were reluctant to stay.
He tried to sit up.
His body felt wrong. Heavy. Awkward. Like he had been forced into skin that did not belong to him.
"Nagini?" he called, instinctive and sharp.
The sound that came out stole his breath.
It was not his old voice, cold and hoarse and hissing with the edge of Parseltongue. It was a child's voice. Clear, young, and disconcertingly soft, like someone who had just woken from an afternoon nap.
Tom's spine went rigid.
He lifted his hand.
Small. Pale to the point of translucence. Slender knuckles. No calluses from years of gripping a wand. No damage from Dark magic's backlash.
A child's hand.
"Possession?" he murmured. "Soul attachment?"
It was a sensible first conclusion. Horcruxes had made him intimately familiar with the concept of anchoring himself to the world, and an accidental latch onto an unlucky host was not impossible.
Dizzy, he swung his legs off the rusty iron bed and stepped barefoot onto the cold floor. The chill bit straight through him.
The room was small. Two beds. One empty. A window that looked out on a grey sky and rows of brick houses with all the charm of a prison wall.
His throat tightened.
He knew this view.
Wool's Orphanage.
The cage that had held his childhood before 1938.
"Merlin's beard," Tom muttered, and moved quickly, almost stumbling, towards the full length mirror in the corner. One corner of its frame was missing, the glass slightly warped with age.
He needed to see himself.
If he had been shoved into some nameless orphan, then fine. He would rebuild. He would claw back power, kill whoever stood between him and freedom, and burn this place to ash if it pleased him.
But when he stopped in front of the mirror, the fearsome Dark Lord felt something he had not felt in a very long time.
A chill that crawled up his spine, colder than death.
In the mirror was a girl.
About eleven years old.
She wore a faded grey linen nightgown that hung too large on her thin frame, the sort of thing passed down until it was nearly threadbare. That detail barely registered.
What mattered was her face.
It was exquisite in a way that stole the air from the room. Long black hair, glossy as satin, fell to her waist. Her skin was so fair it looked almost porcelain. And those eyes, those dark eyes he had once taken pride in, were set in a face that looked harmless.
Pitiable, even.
It was still his face.
Tom Riddle's face, the one from youth that had charmed professors and witches alike.
Only now it was the female version of him.
"This…" His hand shook. "What kind of disgusting joke is this?"
He touched his throat. No Adam's apple.
His breath hitched. He reached lower, frantic.
Nothing.
For a moment he stood there, frozen between rage and disbelief, as if the mirror might crack and reveal the truth beneath.
Then a cheerful mechanical voice screamed into his mind.
[Welcome to the Virtue System. This system is dedicated to saving 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?" Tom snapped. "Get out of my head!"
He tried, purely on instinct, to strike back. A mental push, the start of a spell, the familiar sense of magic gathering under his command.
Nothing answered.
The magic in his body felt like a dried up well, with only the smallest trickle left at the bottom.
[I am your auxiliary system. Given that the host committed many evils in his previous life and his soul is shattered, this system adheres to the principle of Love and Peace to grant you a second life.]
[The price is that you must start over in this world and repair your soul and unlock your power by accumulating Virtue.]
[Warm reminder: This body is a Body of Supreme Goodness tailored for you by the system. Please cherish it.]
"Body of Supreme Goodness?" Tom stared at the fragile girl in the mirror, and laughed, sharp with fury.
"I will kill whoever I want. I am Lord Voldemort. You think this sort of trick can trap me?"
The door slammed open.
A middle aged woman in a stained apron stomped in, broad and bloated, holding a tin bucket that clanged against her leg. She was the orphanage administrator, not Mrs Cole, but she had the same rough ugliness and the same talent for making a room feel smaller.
"Tamara!" the woman barked. "What time is it, and you are still fussing in front of the mirror?"
Tamara.
So that was the name he wore now.
"Go and scrub the hallway clean! Today is the day someone from that blasted school is coming, and you will not embarrass me!"
Something hot and vicious unfurled in Tom's chest.
A Muggle ordering him about. A filthy, insignificant creature daring to speak to him that way.
He did not need a wand to hurt her. Wandless magic was not elegant, but it worked, and he knew too many ways to make someone beg.
He lifted his small hand, slender fingers pointing towards her, and formed the curse in his mind with a familiar relish.
Crucio.
[Warning! Strong murderous intent and malicious attack behaviour detected!]
[Violation of Virtue Guidelines: Rule One, do not harm the innocent.]
[Initiating punishment: Level One electric shock.]
The magic did not even have time to gather.
A strange current surged through his entire body in an instant.
It was not agony.
That was the cruelest part.
It was a numb, invasive sensation that made his legs turn to water. Heat flooded his cheeks. His heart slammed against his ribs, frantic and out of control. His breath came fast, broken, humiliating.
"You…" Tom tried to speak, tried to snarl, tried to spit venom.
What came out was thin and shaking, soft with weakness, trembling as if it might break into tears.
"You… do not come over…"