Chapter Text
Tom Marvolo Riddle was born with a star on his skin.
It sat over his heart, small and pale and almost shy. When he was very young (four, maybe), he discovered it by accident, scratching at his chest because the wool of his shirt was irritating. His fingers brushed the slightly smoother skin, the shape of the star, and he froze.
He tugged his shirt up and stared.
It was not big or dramatic. Not golden or glowing like the storybooks said some marks could be. It was slightly lighter than his skin, faintly defined, its five points crisp and neat. No eyes, no mouth, no expression. Just a star.
He touched it carefully with one finger.
"Hello," he whispered, because no one else was in the room and the word burned on his tongue. "Are you real?"
The star did nothing. No twitch. No glow. No sign from the universe.
But Tom knew. Some instinct deeper than reason told him: this is not just a blemish. This is someone.
His someone.
He pulled his shirt back down, hugging his knees to his chest.
The other children boasted about their marks sometimes. Lucy had a little flower on her wrist that giggled and glowed soft pink when her soulmate was happy. Daniel had a shield on his shoulder that warmed and had a smug look on its face whenever his soulmate was proud. These were the ones the nurses cooed over, laughing about how adorable it was when they reacted. How sweet it would be when the children finally met the other halves of their marks.
Nobody ever asked about Tom's.
They forgot about it as soon as they saw his eyes.
Too cold, they said. Too clever. Strange.
ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
"Have you been born yet?" he whispered one winter night, breath fogging faintly in the air. The window rattled with the wind, and the mattress springs complained when he shifted. "Are you a baby? A child? Are you... nothing yet?"
The star stayed blank. Tom chewed his lip.
He had heard the stories. Some marks remained faceless because the soulmate died very young, before the bond could truly awaken. Some because the other soul had not yet been born.
"You exist," he told the star one night, voice firm in the dark. "You have to. I won't accept anything else."
No one argued with him, so he took that as agreement.
ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
By the time the star on his chest finally changed, Tom Riddle was no longer Tom Riddle.
The newspapers called him other names now.
He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named.
You-Know-Who.
The Dark Lord.
He had followers. An army. A symbol feared across Britain. His name was spoken in desperate whispers and frantic orders. People bowed, bled, and died in his name.
And through it all, the star over his heart remained the same: blank. Faceless. Silent.
For years, that had been his only real disappointment.
He had conquered death in theory, made strides toward it in ritual and research. He had charmed, terrified, and reshaped the world around him. And yet the closest thing he had to a promise of love lay stubbornly empty over his heart, as if the universe itself refused him that one thing.
If his soulmate was gone, he would survive it. He had survived worse.
He was not a child in an orphanage anymore, clutching a thin blanket and whispering into the dark.
He was Lord Voldemort.
He did not need anyone.
But one day, he was in a small, filthy cottage, standing over a broken man on the floor.
The raid had been simple: a suspected blood traitor, once loosely associated with the Order. His Death Eaters had dragged the man from under the floorboards, tossed him at Voldemort's feet like a gift laid before a king.
The man babbled. They usually did.
Voldemort listened with half an ear. The information was useful, but his attention had drifted long before the man started sobbing.
Pathetic.
He lifted his wand lazily.
"Crucio."
The man's screams tore the air apart.
Voldemort watched, detached. The pain of others no longer shocked him. Magic behaved as it should. He controlled it. Directed it. Shaped it to his will.
Then, abruptly, something punched through him like a spike of lightning.
A violent, lurching pain. Not in his wand hand, not in his head, but from his chest.
From his star.
He staggered. The curse dropped with his focus, the man collapsing into shuddering gasps of air. Around him, Death Eaters cried out in confusion.
"My Lord?"
"Master?"
He barely heard them.
A burning sensation clawed its way across his ribs, sharp and bright. It wasn't like any physical wound; it was inside him, in the magic, in the soul, like something had suddenly been tied to him.
His hand flew to his chest. The star was hot.
Voldemort hissed, grabbing at the front of his robes, tearing them open with a savage rip. The Death Eaters flinched back, more afraid of that loss of composure than any curse.
His shirt went next, buttons popping, fabric dropping to the floor.
And there, over his heart...
The star was glowing. Blazing, actually. Fierce white-gold light poured from the small, once-blank shape, the skin around it flushed with heat.
For the first time in his life, it was moving.
Tiny lines writhed on its surface, carving themselves into existence. A circle here, a curve there, the faintest suggestions of features battling their way out of emptiness.
"My Lord—"
"Leave," Voldemort snarled.
The word cracked like a whip. They didn't hesitate.
In less than ten seconds, the cottage was empty of everyone but him and the groaning wreck of a man on the ground, who might as well have been furniture for all Voldemort noticed him.
His breathing came too fast, too ragged. He watched, transfixed, unable to look away as the mark on his skin shifted and solidified.
Two small circles formed in the center.
Eyes.
A tiny line appeared beneath, then trembled.
A mouth.
For a heartbeat, the new little face on his skin just... stared. Blankly. As if stunned by its own existence.
Then its tiny, drawn-on eyes widened.
The mouth opened in a silent, soundless wail.
The star began to cry.
It scrunched up, its tiny eyebrows drawing together, its tiny mouth wobbling, and little shining shapes like tears shimmered at the edges of each point, as if dripping down his chest.
Voldemort's breath caught.
Magic surged along the bond, sharp and raw. It wasn't his pain. Not exactly. It was something else. He knew what it was.
Birth.
His soulmate was being born.
He pressed his hand over the star, suddenly terrified it might shatter or burn out if he didn't hold it together.
The new little face on his skin squeezed its eyes tighter, like it was overwhelmed, confused, frightened by the world it had just been dragged into. Its tiny mouth opened wider in that mute, desperate scream.
"Hush," Voldemort rasped, voice coming out rougher than he intended. "Be still. You're all right."
The star did not appear to agree.
"I am here," he said slowly. "I have been waiting a long time."
The star's face scrunched tighter, then slowly, slowly began to relax. Its eyes stayed wet, but the lines of its tiny mouth softened from a scream to a wobbling frown.
"You are mine," he told the new, crying soul on the other end of the bond. "And I am yours."
ヾ(≧▽≦*)o