0467 The Appearance
Although Voldemort still wore John Selwyn's appearance inhabited that child's body, the vessel was visibly riddled with damage that spoke to how close it was to complete failure.
The pale skin, which had once looked merely unhealthy, was now covered with spiderweb-like cracks that had spread across the entire visible surface of the body. The fractures ran along the face, down the neck, across the hands, everywhere Adrian could see.
Some fragments of skin had already begun to peel away from the underlying tissue, curling at the edges and falling like dead leaves.
Through the cracks, Adrian could see something dark moving beneath—not blood or muscle as would be normal, but something like shadow, or darkness made semi-solid.
Voldemort's fragmented was soul trying to hold together a body that was no longer capable of containing it.
The boy's eyes were no longer the normal brown they should have been. Instead, they glowed with an unnatural crimson light, like coals burning in a dead face.
"You won't escape this time, Adrian Westeros," Voldemort's distorted voice resounded through the mist, seeming to come from everywhere at once.
The voice didn't quite match the movements of John's lips, as if there was a slight delay between the soul speaking and the body responding.
"I've spent weeks planning this moment, preparing for this confrontation. There will be no convenient interruptions, no last-minute rescues, no fortunate accidents to save you. Just you, me, and what I've come to claim."
Adrian remained externally calm despite the unease in his gut, his wand was held steadily and pointed at his opponent.
"With that body that's about to collapse?" Adrian said coldly, gesturing with his free hand at Voldemort's crumbling body. "It seems splitting your soul has indeed made your mind unclear as well, Tom Riddle. You're falling apart at the seams. How long do you think that stolen flesh can contain you? Minutes? Hours?"
The slow use of Voldemort's birth name was intended to anger him. Adrian knew that Voldemort hated being reminded of his mortal origins, of the half-blood orphan he'd once been before he'd transformed himself into something monstrous.
Though Dobby trembled violently beside Adrian, he bravely raised both hands anyway, his fingertips were beginning to sparkle with light as he prepared to attack if needed.
Seeing this pathetic display of courage from a creature he clearly considered beneath notice, Voldemort's nearly shattered face twisted into an eerie smile.
The expression pulled at the cracks in his skin, widening some of them, causing small flakes of dried flesh to fall away.
"This body is indeed broken, failing rapidly as you've observed," Voldemort said, his tone was casual despite the malice underlying every word.
"This boy's flesh was never meant to serve as a permanent vessel—merely a temporary convenience, a way to move about the world while I made my preparations. But why do you think I would simply appear before you like this, in this pathetic state, if I didn't have a solution already prepared?"
An ominous premonition suddenly rose in Adrian's heart, a flash of intuition that screamed danger even before his conscious mind fully understood why.
"I have long prepared a perfect vessel," Voldemort continued, and now there was eagerness in his voice, anticipation of something he'd been planning for weeks or months.
"A body constructed from pure magic and will, superior to any flesh-and-blood form could ever be. And you, Adrian Westeros, will witness it with your own eyes before you die."
As soon as Voldemort finished speaking, before Adrian could react or respond, John's body began to shatter.
It didn't collapse or fall in the normal way a dying person might. Instead, it fragmented like broken porcelain struck with a hammer. The cracks that had been spreading across the skin suddenly widened all at once, and the entire body broke apart into thousands of pieces.
The fragments dissolved almost immediately, turning from solid matter into shadow, into darkness, into something that looked like smoke but moved with clear purpose. The pieces dissipated into the surrounding air, becoming part of the unnatural mist that enclosed the plantation.
It was horrifying to watch, made worse by the fact that there was no blood, nothing about the destruction. John's body or whatever had been left of it after months of possession simply ceased to exist, erased as thoroughly as if it had never been.
At the same time, the surrounding fog responded to some unspoken command. It began to move with frantic speed, churning and swirling as it gathered toward the spot where John had been standing.
The mist condensed, compressed, became more solid and substantial as it accumulated.
Adrian watched in horror, his wand was raised but uncertain what spell might be effective against whatever was happening. This was magic beyond anything, dark arts innovation born from Voldemort's unique circumstances and desperate need.
When all the mist had finally cleared from the plantation grounds, when every last wisp of that grayish-white fog had been drawn into the central location and compressed into physical form, a tall, thin figure stood where John's breaking body had been moments before.
Calling him a middle-aged man wouldn't be quite appropriate, Adrian thought with grim recognition, because this wasn't a man in any normal sense.
It was exactly the Voldemort from Adrian's memory. The noseless face with just slits for nostrils. The pale, waxy skin that looked like it had never seen sunlight. The gaunt facial features that seemed barely human, stretched too tight over the skull beneath.
"Behold," Voldemort's voice rang out again, now coming from the proper location, from actual lips rather than echoing mysteriously through the air.
He stared at Adrian with crimson eyes that burned saying proudly, "This is the true appearance of my soul now, Adrian. No longer confined to stolen flesh, no longer limited by the weaknesses of ordinary men."
He spread his arms wide in a gesture, examining his new form with clear satisfaction.
"Recently, I made an astonishing discovery," Voldemort continued, his voice was full of the manic enthusiasm of someone who'd achieved what they'd thought impossible.
"If your soul is powerful enough, if your will is strong enough and your magic sufficient, you can directly use that power to construct a body from nothing. No need for flesh and blood, no need for the tedious limitations of a mortal. This is true mastery of magic, true transcendence beyond what ordinary wizards can even comprehend!"
The mist must have contained an enormous amount of magical power, Adrian realized with growing dread. Voldemort had spent weeks or perhaps months building up that reservoir of energy, condensing it into the fog, preparing it for this exact purpose.
The attack hadn't been improvised, it had been meticulously planned.
But how had Voldemort managed to learn this? How had he discovered the technique for constructing a body from pure magic?
This was beyond anything Adrian had encountered in his research, beyond the dark arts documented in even the most forbidden texts. This was perhaps experimentation at the very edges of magical possibility.
At that moment, even as Adrian's mind raced through these implications, Voldemort's expression began to change.
The pride and satisfaction faded, and was replaced by confusion and then growing anger.
Voldemort looked down at his pale palm, examining it closely. He turned his hand over slowly, as if noticing something wrong. He suddenly clenched his fist tightly, watching the way the fingers moved, and his face registered something like incredulity mixed with rage.
He touched his own face with his other hand, running fingers across the sunken cheeks, the noseless facial features. His expression darkened with each passing second.
This body didn't look "perfect" by any measure, even to an outside observer. But clearly, Voldemort had expected something different, something better than what he'd achieved.
"This..." Voldemort's voice came out strangled with confusion and fury. "How is this possible? The body should be flawless, should be magnificent! I followed the ritual exactly, I gathered the power required, I wove the enchantments with perfect precision! Why is it incomplete?"
After a brief moment of confused fury, Voldemort's eyes widened slightly as he remembered and now understood somethings. His crimson gaze snapped up to focus on Adrian with hatred.
He had apparently figured out the reason for his imperfect resurrection.
"Look at me!" Voldemort snarled; his voice was rising to a shout that reverberated across the plantation.
"Just look at what I've been reduced to! Just because someone stole parts of my soul, I've become this... this incomplete thing!"
His pale face contorted with rage.
"He must pay an extremely painful price for this!" Voldemort continued, his voice was dropping to a hiss. "He will suffer torments beyond anything you can imagine. And moreover... I will personally take back what he stole. I will reclaim my soul, make myself whole again!"
He had noticed that his magically constructed body was not the "perfect" form he'd envisioned, and he'd correctly identified the reason.
The destroyed and missing Horcruxes, those lost fragments of soul had left Voldemort incomplete. His resurrection was flawed because pieces of himself were permanently missing.
In other words, Adrian was also responsible for his current imperfect state. And the Dark Lord was not the type to forgive such an offense.
Looking at the furious, half-mad Voldemort standing before him, Adrian said coldlu.
"Do you really think you can defeat me, Tom?" he asked, deliberately using that hated name again. "Do you truly believe that you, in your damaged and incomplete state, can overcome me here, in my place, where I have every advantage?"
The nearby Tree of Wisdom seemed to respond to his words and his confidence, its massive trunk was swaying slightly despite the lack of wind. The movement drew both Adrian's and Voldemort's attention immediately.
And this almost instantly shifted Voldemort's focus, his anger was momentarily forgotten.
His crimson eyes locked onto the Tree of Wisdom, and his expression transformed. The fury and confusion melted away, replaced by something far more disturbing, it was a look of fanatical hunger, of obsessive desire.
"Ah," Voldemort breathed, his voice was dropping to a near-whisper of awe and greed. "A perfect soul. Ancient and powerful, unmarred by human corruption or weakness. That is indeed what I've been searching for all along."
He spread his arms wide as if to embrace the entire tree, his fingers were grasping at empty air. His whole posture changed, becoming almost worshipful.
Voldemort continued, his voice taking on a dreamy tone that made Adrian's skin crawl. "I thought at first I was imagining it, that my damaged state was making me sense things that weren't real. But no—here it stands. Exactly what I need to make myself whole, to repair what was stolen from me, to achieve true immortality at last!"
This neurotic, unpredictable display shifting from rage to wonder in mere seconds made Adrian furrow his brow with deep concern.
Voldemort seemed unstable, his damaged soul was making his emotions and reactions unpredictable.
And moreover, that look in Voldemort's eyes as he stared at the Tree of Wisdom...
That was an expression of absolute greed. The kind of hunger that would drive someone to do absolutely anything, sacrifice anyone, destroy everything, just to obtain what they desired.
Adrian's hand tightened on his wand.
The battle was about to begin.
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