Worse than death.

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 147788

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Renee" <R.Vink2 at ...> wrote:
>
 Carol wrote:
>  I can't imagine DD *wanting* to take someones life, not even 
Riddle/Voldemort's. What, then, does he mean? Ideas, anyone?"
> > 
(Snip)
> Renee:
> Not so long ago, I found myself wondering what would be the worst
> thing that could happen to Voldemort. What my brain managed to 
come up with, was: discovering that DD was right all the time, that 
there are, indeed, worse things than dying.

Tonks:

Add to that the emptiness one would feel if your whole life had been 
a lie. If all the time you spent and all the struggling you did was 
for nothing. What if your followers figured it out too and they all 
left you. What if everyone figured out that the only thing that gave 
you power was what you took from them, by feeding off of their 
fears. What if no one feared you anymore and you had no followers to 
back you up. And now you are in a mortal body, disfigured, without 
power, without the ability to invoke fear in others. (Remember Lupin 
telling Harry that is was good that the only thing he feared was 
fear itself? I think it was Churchill that said that during the 
Muggle war.)   

Or, what if that touch of "love blood" that you foolishly put in 
your body turned out to be your undoing? What if it enabled you to 
feel Love for the first time, maybe the Love that Harry's mother had 
for Harry. Then you who had not known a  mother's love would know it 
now, but from the mother's point of view. I have head it said that 
one of the things that happen when we die is that we relive our life 
backwards and from the POV of those we have hurt. What if LV had to 
do this? With Lily's blood in him he would know her pain. And he 
might somehow from this develop a conscience. If you were LV, 
wouldn't that be hell! There you would be... knowing love, knowing 
for the first time remorse, knowing that you had been so horribly 
wrong. Can you just imagine what absolute "Hell" that would be. And 
if you continued to be immortal you would feel this for all 
eternity. I think that this would be far worse that death. 

I am almost feeling sorry for poor Tom.

Tonks_op