Title: This Year

Author: DragonLady

Rating: PG, like the books

Disclaimer: If you think I OWN Harry Potter & his world, you are either very crazy or very stupid.

Summary: Voldemort makes his New Year's resolution

Timeline: During the 4th book

"Enough, Wormtail. I'm finished," Voldemort snapped. The balding, watery-eyed man serving him backed away, cringing. Wormtail, previously known as Peter Pettigrew, had good reason to cringe. He served a wizard so powerful and cruel that most of his kind refused to even speak his name, as well as a man who had entered Death and returned - one of the Greater Dead.

Wormtail backed away from the high-backed chair his master sat in and placed the bottle he held on a nearby table.

"Th-th-there's still a little left, my lord, if you want it."

"I don't," the high, cold voice said. Wormtail left the room. The jeweled snake on the floor hissed. "No, Nagini, don't eat him yet," Voldemort said, his voice suddenly courteous. "I need him until my rebirth. Afterwards... if he doesn't stay usefull..."

The snake hissed in pleasure.

"It's New Year's Eve," Voldemort commented in parseltongue, glancing out the window. "Shall I make a resolution?" asked Voldemort. He shifted slightly in his chair. The chair was designed for a full-grown man, and Voldemort was the size of a child. The spells he'd used to give himself corporeal form without possessing another person't body had left him a shrunken, shriveled monster. For the first time, Voldemort was as ugly on the outside as he was within.

"I think I shall." Voldemort paused, then looked at the moon, riding full in the skies like a ship on the cloud sea. "This year... this year, I will kill Harry Potter," the man hissed. "Permanently."