Poor Lucius😂😂😂

The core of Voldemort's character—and the key to understanding him—is that he is just a human being. He cannot outrun his humanity no matter how hard he tries—no matter how much he wants to, even if he constructs himself an inhuman character that's so carefully done and so all-consuming that even he believes it's true.

Voldemort cannot—for a lifetime of trying—escape death. Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality.

He cannot escape anger—on Halloween 1981 he thinks anger is for weaker souls, and by Deathly Hallows he's frequently screaming with fury.

Or fear—his hand was trembling on the Elder Wand.

He cannot escape the orphanage—he thinks in Godric's Hollow how much he hated the children crying.

Or his family—they're the first thing he thinks about after his resurrection.

Or his birth identity—Harry taunts him with it right before his death.

He cannot escape having a human body. In GoF he is stuck an entire year needing the care and presence of another human—at this time, if none other, he has to eat and sleep. Particularly in GoF, he gets cold and has to warm himself by a fire. He can be knocked unconscious and fall to the ground in front of everyone—and based on how he is offered help several times, and this goes on for several paragraphs before he moves on, it seems like this hurt.

He can't escape needing other people—he spends thirteen years disembodied because he needs someone and nobody comes. There are any number of times in the series that Voldemort needs help.

Who tries to give this to him, not for fear or personal benefit, but in fact at great and life-changing personal cost—and stands by this decision proudly and unwaveringly every time it comes up for the rest of the series?

Voldemort cannot escape love—until the very end, it's given to him consistently, and unfalteringly, and publicly. It continues to be given to him after he claims he does not need it.

The question of 'Is this man romantically/sexually involved with this beautiful, intelligent, high-status woman who is madly, openly in love with him, and speaks to him, even publicly, in observably the way a person speaks to their lover—who he trusts with a vital part of his very being, who he lives with, calls a nickname she is only called by her family, keeps physically close to him at times of vulnerability—who is heavily and repeatedly associated by the text with the one time Voldemort's positive emotion is so strong it truly breaks into Harry's mind?' is really not a question at all. Voldemort is human. Read Voldemort—perhaps not on his surface, but at his core—as you would read any other human character.

I love Bellatrix so much

On this day in 1998 our Lord and saviour Voldemort killed Harry Potter and won the Wizarding War ❤️

I know we can’t all love the same things, but it will always be a mystery to me why Bellatrix and Voldemort don’t attract more readers. If you really think about who they are—their canonical story, their exceptional personalities, and the sheer length of their connection (30 years, from 1968 to 1998)—their relationship is one of the most intriguing and fascinating in Harry Potter.

Two villains. Complex. Multifaceted. A half-blood genius. A pureblood warrior. Both defying the odds, enduring the worst, reuniting, and ultimately dying in the same place, at the same time. Whether or not you believe in Bellamort, one thing is undeniable: their relationship is not simple, and it is not one-sided. Reducing Bellatrix to nothing more than a mindless groupie is both ignorant and deeply misogynistic.

Bellatrix from Keep My Candle Burning | art on AO3

“Maniacal laughter was ringing in his ears… he was happier than he had been in a very long time… jubilant, ecstatic, triumphant… a wonderful, wonderful thing had happened… […] [Harry] wondered, with a feeling of great trepidation, what had happened to make Lord Voldemort the happiest he had been in fourteen years.”

— lord voldemort gets laid for the first time in fourteen years, harry potter and the order of the phoenix (2003)

“Delphi’s kicking again, my Lord.”

The pregnancy has begun to tire her out. She is grateful however, even as she feels the little creature inside of her stir and stretch, longing to hear her father’s voice and feel the assuaging presence of his magic. So his hand comes to the swell of her inside her mother.

“Hm,” he agrees as his heiress settles, “strong little creature, isn’t she, Bella?”

Bellamort is the most romantic ship ever. The ultimate illustration of "I love you the way you are." It's not an "I can fix him" ship; it's a couple that explores the depths of evil together, finding equal fascination in each other's thirst for power. The more Voldemort loves himself, the more Bellatrix loves him. And Voldemort cares for nothing and no one in the world, but even with his fractured soul, he can't fully conceal his care for Bellatrix, no matter how much he longs to feel nothing. There's no salvation. No redemption arc. Just a dark, twisted, ever-growing love.

Very interesting that he said men AND WOMEN. Voldemort our feminist icon.