Shadows of Fear

Lord Voldemort was afraid. Of what? Of death. It was one of those fears that lingers in the back of one's mind, darkening one's thoughts, stirring into a toxic obsession in the black of night, when all else is silent. It usually lay dormant – after all, he was an exceptionally powerful wizard, and had horcruxes to keep him tethered to the land of living should his power and skill fail him. However...there were times when his fear would make itself known. And that had happened far too many times of late.

First there was the troll. His Gryffindorish idiot of a host decided that playing the hero was somehow a smart idea, and had nearly gotten himself flattened into pureed eleven-year-old wizard by a mountain troll of all things. To run off and risk himself for another person, another person who was virtually a stranger...well, it was unlike Harry, and went against everything he'd taught him. Harry was kind to a fault, yes, but he had learnt his lesson over the years – mind your own business. It was a basic lesson that the boy had picked up on rather quickly. But, suddenly, years of experience and self-reflection evaporated, and were replaced by a burning urge to ensure that that mudblood was unharmed. Foolish, foolish, incredibly foolish.

The only reason the punishment he doled out to Harry wasn't more harsh was that, as the boy had highlighted, while his actions were foolish, the results were...desirable. In more ways than the boy knew.

The boy had made his first kill – it was the first time the child had taken the life of a sentient creature, and, to his delight, was relatively unaffected by it. He had expressed disappointment at the troll's 'untimely demise', but was otherwise quite content with the fact that he'd decapitated a magical creature with its own distinct psyche and conception of self, complete with recognizable emotions. Given the sort of boy Harry was, there was no doubt that the fact that this creature was fully aware of itself, and was a living creature of intelligence (however meager that intelligence was), had crossed his mind, and was acknowledged...and then promptly ignored. The child was showing promise, and he was pleased to find that the boy's candid way of looking at the world could, in cases like this, actually work against his kind nature. He didn't have to kill the troll; it should have been possible to incapacitate it - but he did so anyway. He was ruthless, in a way, and he was so without any feelings of anger and hatred to spur him on.

If that hadn't been evidence of the boy's potential, his confrontation with Draco Malfoy would have been. He could not help but laugh gleefully when he recalled the burst of furious magic that had pulsed from the boy's body, matching his anger gladly. The boy had only been tired and irritated, and he had broken another child's leg because of a mere insult (and not even an insult directed at him; rather, at his mother). When truly angered into pure white, blinding rage, little Harry Potter would be positively deadly. Oh, how he was looking forward to seeing that. He was still...somewhat disturbed by the child's kind and innocent nature, but these recent events had indicated that it might not be as much of an obstacle as he had originally thought it might be.

And then there was his reputation. The whole affair had done wonders for the boy's reputation. To the rest of Hogwarts he was the Boy Who Lived, a Slytherin boy who had risked his life to save a muggleborn student - a Gryffindor, no less. He was kind, brave, considerate, and living up to the reputation his parents had set a precedence for. To Slytherin House, though, Harry Potter was now a powerful and somewhat volatile little boy, with the potential to be a frightening foe or valuable ally. It was perfect. Months of planning and scheming was condensed into the events of one night.

The final reward Harry's actions had wrought was his friendship with the muggleborn witch. While he wasn't too keen on the friendship himself, Harry had now acquired a rival he could keep a close eye on, which would benefit him in the long run. Having someone to compete with - on an academic level at least; Harry's actual magical prowess would forever dwarf the mudblood's - would accelerate his academic efforts, and the value of intelligent conversation could not be discounted. Because despite what she was, the muggleborn witch was intelligent. There was no denying it. Not to mention, the girl had expressed an interest in learning occlumency, which meant he could finally begin teaching Harry legilimency. Yes, the boy's friendship with the mudblood had potential, that was for certain.

So, all in all, the events of Halloween night had not been entirely futile.

Not long after the troll incident, however, came the Quidditch incident. He had tried to tell him, Quidditch is dangerous – so many opportunities to die in such a short amount of time. The one behind the curse was most likely Quirrell, who was working for his master soul; of that he was quite sure. Moreover, considering the presence of Harry's headaches in Defence against the Dark Arts, it was likely that he was also carrying a horcrux – he didn't think Quirrell was a horcrux himself (indeed, he had come to believe that creating a human horcrux was impossible without the very specific conditions Lily Potter had created...conditions that he had yet to unravel in their entirety), but there was no other explanation for the headaches.

Well, of course there was another explanation; there is always another explanation – and this fact was not to his advantage, seeing as he and Harry really could not afford to confront Quirrell until they were completely sure he was on their side – they couldn't have him running off to Dumbledore and revealing their secret, after all. They needed to make contact at just the right moment, which was, as Harry had deduced, the time at which Quirrell supposedly intended to steal the Stone. Only then could they be sure that at the very least, the squeamish Defence against the Dark Arts teacher wasn't on Dumbledore's side. There was also the possibility that the whole thing was a trap. But what's life without a little risk? He hated risk, of course, the nasty little variable, but it was inevitable.

Quirrell...why his master soul had chosen the timid fool as his servant, he could not figure out. Surely there were other options. Severus was probably out of the question, at this point, but both Rosier and Avery had older children attending the school. Even they had to be more competent than that blithering fool of a professor. Of course, it could all be an act, which would be impressive indeed. Perhaps the Defence against the Dark Arts professor was simply an incredible actor of impressive skill. Yes, that had to be it...right?

Yes, now that he thought about it, it was definitely an act. It had to be. Even at his most desperate, he'd never trust anyone that weak.

Either way, one thing was for certain – Dumbledore had chosen his Defence against the Dark Arts professor poorly...but it was possible he was running out of options, at this point. Perhaps he shouldn't have hexed the Defence against the Dark Arts position...it was an important subject, and Harry would no doubt have to endure 6 more years of unsatisfactory instruction in it. Oh well, what's done is done. The boy had Lord Voldemort to teach him, and no one the old fool could hire would possibly measure up.

It had been quite a while since he had taught the boy anything, though. Legilimency was an important skill, and Harry would have a chance to practice once he started teaching the mudblood occlumency, but there was so much else the boy needed to learn. Fortunately, the invisibility cloak Dumbledore had given them provided the perfect chance to further Harry Potter's education.

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