༚ . ࣪ 𖦹°⋆⟡⋆. ༚

Among such a sea of pitiful ants, stands an angel, a fawn freshly brought into this world, dancing and swaying around with a misty stranger, a shadow, a nonentity — Voldemort’s psyche does not, could not, take in anything else but the silhouette of that mystic creature emitting a persuasion so passionate that it has grasped Voldemort’s vision with an innocence of complete blamelessness, unaware of its impact.

Voldemort’s tongue could not hold itself back any longer.

“That boy.”

The previous, undoubtedly valueless conversation his servants had lost themselves in comes to a stop, heads turning towards the direction their Lord’s gaze is fixed upon.

“Who is he?”

Several wordless, puzzled moments pass, the uninterrupted music their only companion.

“…That shall be the Potter heir, my Lord.”

During an evening assembly of the British aristocracy, the light of chastity brightens Lord Voldemort to oblivion. A man born from the darkest shadows, he now sets on dragging that virgin innocence into the depths of his abyss.

The eyes of sin find the soul of virtue.

The beginning of the end.

Perhaps I am all, perhaps none. I allow the winds of my soul to direct me towards the song of the birds that sounds the sweetest. Could it, by any chance, be the croak of a raven? The wild, eerie screech of an owl? Yes, no, it does not matter. It soothes my mind, harmonises with the melody of my heart—isn’t that all we yearn for? Do not give my interests a name, do not cut the wings of the dove I let roam free across the sky of my passions, let it fly to its heart’s contents.

Naturally, you start reading the comics, and could not be more tremendously surprised to agree that, yes, the series has nerfed one element (perhaps among many others) to extremity, because never in a million episodes would an encounter (let alone their first visible-to-the-audience one) between Butcher and Homelander be so erotic.

"O lips of darkness,

touch of torment,

kiss me to dawn

hold me to ruin."

It is rather difficult trying to determine an exact path Tom would take under different circumstances. Everything depends on our perception of one’s self — is it born, genetic, unmendable, a fixed essence that is only shaped to completion as the years pass by, or created by the environment, influenced by external forces, moulded by hands that could nurture it towards either purity or vice. Depending on which philosophy we choose to follow, the answers differ. I believe another House would not have shaped Tom into another being. Being surrounded by peers he considered incompetent, unwilling to seek power, self-satisfied, ordinarily simple, one-dimensional, with no brilliant goals whatsoever, would have simply fueled his perverted desire to crush them, for such low fools deserve to crumble beneath the hand of a boy who will build a terrorising empire as a future Dark Lord.

Oh, for sure it is one of the most interesting couples! One cannot possibly look at all of the Tomarrymort tropes (destined doom, soulmates, shared anima, multiple traits/life moments that parallel each other) and still simply categorise them as ‘strictly fantasised ship concept that serves as a primitive tool for the audience’s dark kinks to be explored and released through it.’ To put it simply, the shippers are not using Harry and Tom’s characters (which, majority of the time, are poorly interpreted as Sunshine/sub/green flag x grumpy/dom/red flag) to act out their power imbalance fantasies — it is Tomarrymort’s essence and story in itself that cannot be taken out of context (cough cough, and published as a separate book) and their deeply intertwined, unique story, that is fascinating. The ship is brilliant, because it is built around canon facts. Plus, the magic of imagination and fanfiction shapes it to perfection.

It is quite difficult to pinpoint what one’s exact preference is when it comes to Tomarrymort. It is a dimensional ship, offering quite a delightful number of tropes you can enjoyably get out of it. As for myself? To put it very vulgarly, ordinarily, and scandalously—

Non-con.

Not in the traditional sense. Well, that, too, but the concept of lack of willingness on their relation.

They violate each other equally. They share a soul, a psyche, they feel each other’s emotions, they get visions through the other’s eyes, one’s self is constructed upon his anima being mended with the other’s. Harry has lived with himself without knowing there was a stranger in there (but was he, Voldemort, a stranger? Harry acted, thought, analysed, woke up and slept, laughed and wept and raged, all actions directed by a mind which housed another consciousness, a dormant one, or perhaps it was active in the shadows.) None of this was consensual. Two prophesied enemies that ought to vanish are they to touch each other in a manner that is not intended to kill, being connected to such an intimate, spiritual level. One you cannot banish by torturing, terrorising, killing it, your hands cannot reach into your chest to grasp your soul and demand it becomes whole again, by itself. A sickening, maddening reality neither could escape. They belong, entirely, to each other. Their hatred, loathing, anger, disgust — it is all only meant for each other.

The same universe that doomed them to die at the hand of the other, tied them to such closeness, one’s insanity poisoning the other’s lucidity, one’s light blinding the other’s darkness. But which belongs to who? Their true selves, do they exist outside their fused souls? Can they, even?

I cannot help but think about Dante’s Inferno. Punishment fits the crime. Were Harry and Voldemort to be in one of the Circles (an existing one, or perhaps a wholly new, 10th one) their punishment would be for their selves to always be drawn to each other, for they ache to touch their own soul nestled in the other, yet upon their union, they die, again and again. A cycle of unwilling yearning that ends with death.

I stand up for all the b!tom darlings ❤️

Wow!! I’ve actually been getting more into b!TMR content lately cuz I really felt exactly what you said about writers capturing their canon essence so brilliantly there (not that I’m fixed on that dynamic, I’m def a switch truther) and it’s genuinely so nice to read this, esp coming from a Tomarry shipper who writes as wonderfully as you do!

Voldemort whose paleness rivals that of a decade-old corpse’s, the blood that ought to warmly flow in his veins saturates his eyes instead — to look at those crimson sins is to gaze at hell itself. His skin reeks of decimation, death, carnage. The bones beneath cannot stand to be a part of a skeleton belonging to a man so deranged — they aim to escape, they poke from beneath, their look protruding, horrifying. His lips, stretched from one ear to another, concealing petrifying teeth that can maul Cerberus himself with ease. When his mouth opens, macabrous cries of his victims could be heard from the depths of his abyss, due to the absence of a heart, a soul. His hands, forged by Nyx and the Keres themselves, are bathed in horrid blood and shall remain so, eternally. His frame, tyrannically large, perfectly fitting for a demon who only ever looks down upon wretched fools that cannot ever live up to his glory.

His face, if it could be considered one, merely a ghost of the mortal this man once used to be. Or perhaps that’s what he always was — a cursed entity, a djinn, sin and blasphemy and damnation carefully concealed through beauty, politeness, tact. Everything that his being consisted of, now manifests itself in his flesh.

The moment that you, as an author, create a character with a detailed and complex backstory, personality, character, perspective, mentality, that character can now detach itself from you and exist as an independent person that fans can speculate and theorise about without having to rely on further statements from the original creator. If the author says something about her character, it does not mean that it is truly, entirely accurate to what they have previously stated about said character.

Bringing a theoretical example — If an author in their story makes their character spent years full of wrath and fury planning their parents’ murder and then after committing it, spends even more years never regretting their decision, you, the author, in an interview, cannot suddenly say that ‘They actually did it out of love and did not mean to’. Sure, in the world you have created you can make said statement true, but that is possible simply because you have the authority to add and/or remove elements from your legitimate creation.

That said, not everything that Rowling or any author says post-writing is truly or wholly accurate.

Regarding your statements, up until the age of 12, Harry had not enjoyed any of the fruits of his nepotism, living in an abusive household. Tom was under similar conditions, but rather in an orphanage. Even after Harry learned about his backstory, the majority of its effects were negative rather than positive.

To try to somehow grasp Tom’s psyche, (which I believe is to an extent impossible, he cannot be fully understood) first we should not try to strictly place him in a frozen position on the ASPD spectrum. Sociopath, psychopath, this, that, it is futile trying to chain him to one-dimensional worlds. He is not simply just this or just that, but rather a complicated prism that reflects even contradictory traits.

Rowling writing women in a certain way is not a direct, authentic reflection of said women’s nature and abilities in real life. If in Rowling’s world a female Tom Riddle would have achieved nothing, that’s a lack of capability on the author’s end rather than an actual truth regarding her character.

To be egoistical, power-hungry, a tyrant, inhumane, a cold-blooded killer; traits that are stereotypical for a male villain, praised upon, characteristics which only fuel the image of ultimate masculinity. Society deems such a deformed psyche as one that a male could “justifiably” morph into simply because they have categorised his primitive needs as naturally violent, destructive, therefore when he unravels his ferocious nature, that is the supreme male creation, Adam in his purest form.

An entirely different approach when it comes to women — meant to bend their needs to fit society’s ones, to break their bones and rearrange them in the most submissive, yielding form, to strip themselves of selfish, egoistical desires that do not, could not, belong to the ultimate female; the softest of the genders, the backbone of society that holds upon themselves the crushing weight of impossible expectations, hypocrisy, discrimination, abuse.

Imagine now, female Riddle, giving up everything that a woman wishes to possess in order to survive in this misogynistic society — her magnificently acceptable reputation, constructed upon hard work and flawless, natural talents; her breathtaking beauty, something that would have easily offered endless opportunities and opened doors simply because of men’s ordinary, foolish desires; her humanity; she killed one of her parents, her relatives, committing a murder society considers as the faultiest because women are supposed to take care and love their creators all their life, it is a daughter’s responsibility to look after her parents when sons abandon them to pursuit their dreams.

She would have not wanted to just live in a mundane society as a witch, — a powerful one, mind you, considering Riddle’s abilities, earning herself a high position that is harder to obtain for a woman than it is for a man, — but rather as the witch, the supreme Dark Lady, aiming for the highest, most dangerous mountains of magic.

All because she yearned for more, more, power and superiority and immortal sovereignty.

Riddle’s brutality, misanthropy, her maliciousness— all would have curated a pathbreaking, glorious villain, simply because it wears the skin of a woman.