Chapter - 2 : Echoes of Fate

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"You are no danger to me," he said aloud. "So the question becomes… what is your fate? Your father had to die, he was in my way. Your mother… she chose her death. And your brother, he will go. But you pose no danger. Should I kill you as well?

"It would almost be a kindness," he contemplated, turning the thought over in his head. "Orphanages are never kind to their occupants. You would learn that quickly, but not if I kill you here and now. Perhaps you would find your family in whatever afterlife there is."

The girl blinked at him. Her chubby little hand reached out towards him. He reared back, surprised. But the girl just continued to stare at him, hand stretched out. Slowly, cautiously, he drew her closer, watching with some sort of fascination to see what she would do.

When she was within reach, she laid her chubby palm on his cheek and, for the first time that night, made a sound. A cheerful gurgle, almost a greeting, like she was pleased to see him. Would she be nearly so pleased if she were old enough to comprehend what she had just witnessed? Would she reach out of the man who would murdered her family if she knew that he had just stepped over her father's corpse and left him to cool downstairs?

It was an intriguing idea, in its own way. To see what would become of the orphaned Potter girl. The one who, but by an accident of birth, might have been untouched by him. But now she would grow up steeped in the legend that he would become. The sister of the one who would have destroyed him if he hadn't killed the boy first.

She could become a trophy of sorts. He had always been fond of trophies. The girl whose life he had ruined, who he could perhaps have his servants raise to stand by his side. What a sight that would be: the daughter of the self-righteous Potters at his side. If that wouldn't crush the morale of those who would oppose him, nothing would.

But she could not escape tonight unscathed, no. Mother, father, brother dead and she without a mark on her? No, that wouldn't do.

He took the child in one arm. His free hand drew his wand from his pocket once more. He imagined he could feel a savage pleasure from the instrument at what it was about to do, the damage, both physical and emotional, it would wreak upon the baby.

He placed the tip of his wand against her left cheek. Her little mouth turned down as if she were annoyed. He dragged the wand in a large, elegantly curved S, the same as the one emblazoned on the locket of his ancestor. Where his wand touched, skin parted as smoothly as butter. Blood seeped from the thin wound.

Finally, finally the child reacted to him in a normal way. She screwed up her face and began to cry, trying to pull away from his wand, but he held her head tightly in place until he was finished. Her tiny hands clenched into fists in her irritation, face going red as she wailed her pain with all the gusto her tiny little lungs could muster.

The boy cried louder and harder at the sound of his sister's wail. His mouth turned down in a scowl once more as their voices drilled into his ears.

He set the wailing, bleeding girl down in the crib. He would return to her later. Now he turned his wand upon the boy, the reason he was here. It was almost comical to think that this screaming lump of flesh might one day destroy him, the greatest wizard who had ever lived, he who had delved farther into the mysteries of magic than anyone else ever had. And yet no chances could be taken.

He inhaled, aimed his wand at the child's face, and said the words.

The energy leeched from his body with breathtaking speed as he was ripped apart from the inside out. He staggered against the crib, the girl's face inches from him, watching him accusingly as his vision blackened. He had just enough time to realize he was dying before he was shattered.

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