Voldemort returns and is intent on revenge, preventing the prophecy from coming true and ensuring his reign over the wizarding world. But everything changes when he realizes the girl who lived, his ultimate nemesis...is actually a Horcrux...
Voldemo...
Voldemort's eyes snapped open, a gasp escaping his lips. Disoriented, he scanned his surroundings, his gaze piercing the gloom that enveloped him. Dark clouds churned overhead, moving with an ominous lethargy that seemed to mock his confusion. He was lying down, he realized, the ground beneath him a tapestry of crunchy straw and withered grass, a testament to the desolation that stretched out in all directions.
He sat up, feeling the coarse texture of the dead vegetation prickling against his skin. The landscape was a wasteland of dry, cracked earth, where life had long since surrendered to decay. To his right, gnarled trees, twisted and lifeless, clawed at the sky, their branches like the skeletal fingers of a long-forgotten corpse.
But it was the figure to his left that drew his attention—a solitary silhouette standing at the precipice of a vast cliff. Hadria. Her back was turned to him, her form draped in a gown of ethereal white that billowed around her like a ghostly flame. Her long, platinum blonde hair, a river of light, danced in the wind, a silent melody of sorrow.
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"Hadria!" he called out, his voice a desperate plea carried away by the breeze. "What are you doing?!"
She remained motionless, a statue gazing into the abyss below. Panic surged within him, and he began to move, first walking, then running, his name for her a mantra on his lips.
"Hadria!"
At last, she turned, her face a canvas of tears that glistened like diamonds of grief. His heart constricted, a vice of emotion that he could not comprehend. He ran faster, but the distance between them remained a chasm he could not bridge. She looked once more to the edge, to the void that beckoned.
"Hadria! Don't!"
"My lord..."
His legs pumped with frenetic urgency, his breath ragged as he sought to close the gap, to save her from the precipice that threatened to claim her. He couldn't lose her—not again.
"Hadria!"
"My Lord! Wake up!"
Reality crashed into him as Bellatrix's voice tore through the veil of his nightmare. He was jolted awake, her hands pressing down on his shoulders, her presence an unwelcome anchor to a world he wished to escape.
"Get off!" he snarled, his voice laced with venom as he shoved her away. He slid from the bed, his movements a blur as he retreated to the sanctuary of the bathroom. The water from the faucet was a cold shock against his skin, a futile attempt to wash away the remnants of the dream that haunted him...it wasn't the first one.
"You were calling her name again, My Lord."
Despite his love for her, Bellatrix's voice was a whine that grated on his nerves. He caught her reflection in the mirror, her figure framed by the doorway, her arms crossed in a petulant display of jealousy. He clenched his teeth, anger boiling within him. Hadria was a Horcrux, nothing more, he told himself. Yet the dreams suggested otherwise, leaving him feeling hollow, desperate, and inexplicably angry.
