Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter.

Not so Different
By Silver Sailor Ganymede

Whenever people hear the names 'Harry Potter' and 'Lord Voldemort', they immediately think that we are completely different. They all think that their 'Golden Gryffindor' could never be a think like 'You-Know-Who'. They assume that the 'Dark Lord' and the 'Saviour of the Light Side' are polar opposites; the fact is that whoever they are, they are completely wrong.

We, that is,Voldemort and I, are different in many ways; for one, he was in Slytherin and I in Gryffindor: what very few others know is that I too should have been a Slytherin.

He chose to fight for the dark side and I chose to fight for the light: what very few others know is that I had no real choice; I was conditioned to believe that Slytherins and Voldemort were evil as soon as I knew of the Wizarding World.

I was brainwashed by them; he, on the other hand, refused to accept anything which muggle-loving fools such as Dumbledore told him. He was wise enough to realise that everything they spoke about was a lie; I, however, was not.

But what people fail to realise, or blind themselves to, is how similar we are. Both of us are parselmouths; the only ones recorded since the deaths of Sorvolo and Salazar Slytherin, nearly two millennia ago.

We were both abused by muggles during childhood and hate them because of that. He, in fact, did suffer more than I did, hence his deepest loathing of the lesser race.

We both survived death many times: he on his quest for immortality, and I when fighting against him.

We were both tricked by a fabricated prophecy that threw our world into one of its most deadly wars.

And finally, and perhaps most importantly, we share a wand core: the only two feathers from that powerful phoenix. Ollivander is psychic, I know that much at least; he wasn't predicting something when he said that he could 'expect great things' from both Voldemort and I; he was looking into the future.

So we may seem to be complete opposites, but if those foolish mudbloods and muggle-lovers looked past my façade they might, just might, realise that Voldemort and I, the supposed Yin and Yang, are not so different after all.