56 Chapter 56: The Dark Lord

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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.

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24 May 1992, Hogwarts

He had aimed it at where he sensed Quirrell was. For a second, he felt like it worked, that he had taken the man by surprise. Unfortunately, in a fraction of a second, chains came out of the wall behind him and bound Harry. A disarming charm hit his hand, sending his wand away, and the smoke faded very quickly.

A smirking red eyed Quirrell slowly made his way to him, twirling his wand, "That was far more entertaining than I thought it would be. I believe that we have many things to discuss, Mr. Potter."

The Potter scion thrashed, trying to get out of his restraints, the red-eyed professor smirked as he watched his useless efforts at escaping, "Don't try to run, Potter, I have enchanted these chains myself. Bound I may be by this body's pitiful magical circuits, I assure you that my skills are not diminished."

Harry stopped, understanding how hopeless it was for him to try to escape. Voldemort had just revealed himself to him. That was bad. No, it was the worst possible scenario because it meant that there was a good chance that Harry wouldn't make it out of this classroom alive.

The possessed professor grinned, "You're not surprised, are you? That I'm not who I said I was."

For the first time, Harry chose to speak up, "Is it just you in there, or is Quirrell still hanging around?"

The dark lord snorted, "You're very perceptive, I'll admit to that. No, Quirrell is still there, but mostly dormant. He hasn't been awake for months. It was a shame I had to wrestle control over his body. He felt remorseful after Halloween, almost killing students. He wanted to confess to Dumbledore. I couldn't take that risk and so, he remains asleep. But I'm not here to speak of the snivelling cowardly waste of magic that Quirrell was, but about you. From the moment you saw me, you knew exactly how dangerous I was. Dumbledore himself was fooled, but not you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Harry protested.

"You're a terrible liar, Harry. You see, there's something you must know about me. I'm a master of Legilimency. After all, you did not meet my eyes for almost a year. It's almost admirable, all things considered; if I hadn't been paying attention specifically on you, I wouldn't have noticed it. You were good at it, very good, but you were arrogant. You didn't know everything. Yes, you prevented my Legilimency from taking hold, but you didn't know that I was also an empath."

Harry froze, and the dark lord burst into laughter. It was one of the worst sounds the Potter scion had ever heard, "Oh, the look on your face. Yes, I noticed you from the very first day. The other students were nervous, yes, but you were absolutely terrified to the bone, yet you didn't show it. I spied on you when you were with other professors, and you weren't even bothered. Even Severus did not frighten you. What you felt was an emotion that I was familiar with. It was the fear I felt whenever anyone saw me before my downfall. The crushing fear and mind-numbing terror, that would make your heart beat wildly. You felt it and I immediately realized why you felt that way. You knew who I was from the very first day, and it terrified you."

Harry felt a mind probe try to enter his mind, and immediately employed his occlumency, reining in his stray thoughts. The Dark Lord could not be allowed to enter Harry's mind. The secrets inside could very well destroy the wizarding world.

He expected Riddle to be angry, to start torturing. He did not expect the man to burst into laughter again, "An Occlumens at your age. Do you have any idea how rare that is? I wasn't even half that good when I was your age. You're something special indeed. But I'm not a master of Legilimency for nothing."

Harry could feel the mind probe shift and attacking specifically his mind. This wasn't a Legilimency probe anymore. It was something more, something deeper. For the first time, Harry was afraid. However, his magical crest started to warm up and Harry could feel the frustration coming from Voldemort as his attempts fail at breaking the mind protection of his crest.

Yeah, mental protections were commonly put on magical crests to prevent people from stealing the family spells inside them. Oh, it didn't protect against Legilimency as it senses the projected thoughts of the user, it simply stops deep dives into the mind. Mind magic was a very dangerous field of magic, which could potentially reshape the very personality of a person. No one wanted their legacy to become nothing by puppets, giving away their secrets to unworthy families. Harry's crest was no different in that regard. It protected his mind and for the first time, the professor's crimson eyes were not amused.

"A magical crest," he murmured, "that's how you're blocking me. I had forgotten about that particular side effect. It does explain how you were able to banish me from the forest. I wasn't able to return afterwards, and this body is starting to fail me without a steady supply of unicorn blood."

Harry realized something, "You're dying because you took over Quirrell's body. His magical channels are slowly getting acclimated to your soul and it's tearing the body apart."

The man grinned once more, "See, that's why I offered to make you into my apprentice. And yet you refused me. You could have had everything you wanted. Power, reputation, wealth, everything you could have ever desired, but you turned down my offer, knowing exactly who I was."

"It was nothing personal," Harry retorted, "you just have a bad reputation when it comes to treating your servants."

"Not everything they say about me is the truth. I do have a code of honour of sorts, and my goal is a noble one," the man answered.

"You seriously think that genocide is a noble cause?" Harry answered incredulously.

"Of course not. I do not condemn Mudbloods out of anger or hate. They are simply sacrifices. They are the price for me getting control of the magical world and achieving my dream."

"And what dream would that be?" the Potter scion asked.

"Peace…" the man murmured.

"Peace? You want to achieve peace with genocide? That's literally the opposite of peace," Harry retorted with an incredulous tone.

"Young Harry, how little you know. How little you understand. The magical world has been at war for thousands of years. The Light and the Dark have been fighting ever since history could remember. At every given moment, there is a champion of light and a champion of darkness. They are granted immense magical potential and a near instinctive intuition when it came to magic, so much so, that history gives them the same label, even if most do not understand the implications of that name. They were called Archmages, and their very purpose is to lead their faction to victory, fighting against one another, in an endless cycle of pain and suffering. The moment a champion dies, another takes his place, and the war continues. I wish to end this war, to have peace at last."

Harry was oddly entranced by the story, "So, I'm guessing you're the dark champion…"

The man snorted, "No, I am not. There can only be a singly dark champion alive. There is a reason why Dumbledore did not kill Grindelwald. The Champion of the Light imprisoned the dark and stopped a new champion from emerging for decades. There is a reason why the light reigns supreme in this era. I am neither a champion of the dark nor of the light. I stand alone, wishing to end this senseless war."

"Then why do they call you the Dark Lord, then?"

"They do not understand, not really, what a true Dark Lord is. I have driven myself to master the magical arts. I did not have the champions' advantages, but I had my mind, and I honed it and my magic for decades until I was strong enough to challenge a champion. I performed countless rituals to hone my body and enhance my magic, I have travelled the world, learning every scrap of knowledge I could find, and I succeeded in my dream. I have even transcended Death, as you could see. I have become the first Archmage in history that was not a champion. The first Dark Lord that was not a Dark Champion. I have to say that I took Dumbledore by surprise when I first attacked. He looked so confused at having a challenger to his position."

Harry stayed frozen for a second, processing what the man just said, before answering, "But what does that have to do with Muggleborns?"

"I needed to oppose the champion directly. Dumbledore needed to be involved for it to work. The moment Dumbledore dies is the moment my plan will commence. I have built an artefact capable of detecting champions. I have snuck as a Nurmengard guard to study Grindelwald's magic, and I spent years doing my best to do the same with Dumbledore's. The moment Dumbledore and Grindelwald perish, I will track down their newborn replacements, trap them in suspended animation, frozen in time and death, where I would look after them for an eternity. Rookwood was very helpful in that regard. He was one of my most valuable followers, having worked in the temporal department as an Unspeakable. The plan was perfect and ready to be followed the moment Dumbledore dies. I would have waited for the old man to die of natural causes, but the man's connection to Nicholas Flamel was very concerning. The possibility of him drinking the Elixir of Life was too high, I needed to kill him. Hence, the war. I needed to oppose Dumbledore, and I used the ideals of the opposing factors. They were nothing but tools after all."

Harry couldn't believe what he was hearing, "And you were prepared to slaughter every single Muggleborn in the world. How is this peace?"

"What are the lives of a small faction compared to endless peace? Imagine a united magical world, without any wars, without countless battles. Imagine a Camelot without Merlin and Morgana fighting. Imagine ancient Greece without Zeus and Hades fighting. All over history, you can see it, the countless deaths that occurred because of this accursed war. What I have done is barely more than a drop compared to the vast oceans that are the champions' body count. It's not like it's permanent. After the purge, and I'm in control, I would have made concessions to integrate new muggleborns into the magical world."

"And where does Longbottom have to do with any of it."

The man growled at the name, and Harry had to shiver at the sound, "It was a trap. I see it now. Dumbledore set out my downfall, he tricked me into going after the Longbottom heir, and I fell for it. But that does not matter now, the plan is still in motion. It can be salvaged. After getting the stone, I will have stolen Dumbledore's main weapon and I will return to my former glory and fulfil my destiny."

Yeah, that man was insane. There was no way around it. Harry could hear the chaos of his being underneath all that veneer of civility, and he wanted to run away as far away as possible. He was in this situation because of his arrogance. He had thought that distancing himself from the story as much as possible, that staying passive would keep him safe. He chose not to change anything drastically because when the story was over, the good guys won, and the bad guys lost, and if things progressed the same, then everything would have been alright. Voldemort would die, one piece of soul after another, at the hands of the chosen one, and everything would be alright. It was why he gave up so easily on his friendship with Hermione, why he didn't just warn a professor about Hermione being in the bathroom. That surety that everything would be alright was why he was in this situation. His inaction had made him suffer. The possessed professor might be civil with his, but that was it, it was a mask. Harry was in danger, and he knew it.

Harry couldn't help himself and asked, "What makes you so sure that it's your destiny to break the cycle?"

"BECAUSE I SUFFERED FOR IT! BECAUSE I GAVE AWAY EVERYTHING THAT MADE ME HUMAN FOR MY PURPOSE," the man took a deep breath and calmed down, "I have sacrificed everything I had to fulfil that goal. I saw firsthand how dangerous these champions could be and the suffering that they caused everyone. They are a blight to the world, and I made it my mission to purge them."

There he was the dark lord. His red eyes were filled with anger and madness. Yeah, that was the truth underneath all the layers of charm. Harry did his best not to flinch at the malevolence of the released magic, "Why are you forthcoming with all of this?"

"Oh, that's very simple, Mr. Potter. You see, I will be leaving this classroom with either a new apprentice who will need to know my true goals or a dead body to hide. After all, dead men tell no tales. You see, I can tell that you will grow to be an exceptionally powerful wizard and I can't take the risk of you being convinced with Dumbledore's honeyed words. So, you're either a potential ally and perhaps even my heir one day, or you're a potential enemy. I don't particularly enjoy threats to my goal, and you will be one. This is your choice, Potter, serve or die. So, what will it be?"

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Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.