For the hundredth time, I ran my plan for Dumbledore's elimination through my head.
The smartest thing seemed to be to fake my own death after attaining immortality and lie low, but it wasn't working out. There were several reasons.
Politics. For Magical Britain, I had become more than just a symbol. After the battle at Azkaban, I became what a nuclear arsenal is to a country. A strategic deterrent and a guarantee of independence. My prolonged absence would end with Magical Britain being torn to shreds by those we've wronged, by Dumbledore's acquaintances, and by those who don't want to see the country strengthened. As it is, no one is eager to have Nurmengard-level explosions going off in their backyard.
Besides, my servants are like the fable of the swan, the pike, and the crayfish. After my long absence, there might be problems with where to return.
Then there's the damned Dumbledore. In light of recent events—the burning of Neville and the destruction of the Lestrange estate—I'm not at all certain the old man won't snap and start making Horcruxes.
Moreover, Albus must not be given time to think. It's one thing when you're a guard and an alarm siren is constantly blaring somewhere, and quite another when there's time to reflect. If I give the old man a breather, he'll realize something is wrong. That's why as soon as Snape reported that Albus was appearing more often among his own, I allowed information about Neville to be leaked. Yes, I wasn't fully ready, but the main thing for me was not that I be ready, but that Albus be unready.
Neville is dead, but Harry remains. I'll need to prepare him.
Unfortunately, Rodolphus died. Whether he wanted to save Neville or help me, the result is obvious: like Voldemort, he was blasted to dust. A pity. If he had been near the source, he might have had a chance to survive a distant explosion.
I mourned Rodolphus for one prosaic reason: I had a mission with a high probability of being fatal, and I needed a completely loyal volunteer, preferably bound by a heap of oaths. But Rodolphus was dead!
No special knowledge was required, Lily would have been suitable, but she was needed elsewhere. Snape was untrustworthy and needed in case Albus survived after all.
So I had to use Bellatrix, who, fortunately, was burning with righteous anger and wanted to help me kill Dumbledore.
I believed that for our next meeting, Albus would prepare something incredible, and avoiding the old man is dangerous: his energy could take unpredictable forms if left to its own devices. For example, he might sacrifice his soul to create a "wand of vengeance"—it would be more powerful than the Elder Wand, but would only fire at Dark Lords.
No, of course, I'm counting on an army of minions, multiple false targets, Harry and his mother, but most of all, I'm counting on myself.
There was a time I could do nothing to Dumbledore. Now, to deal with me, Albus has to use his signature moves.
Albus is, in principle, invincible due to his union of Light and Dark magic. One could hope he would accumulate enough ereghu and Light magic would become inaccessible to him, but what if he's like me? Kill someone—go sit somewhere under a Time-Turner, wait for the ereghu to dissipate. The difference is my immortality is based on external vessels and rejuvenation through rebirth, like a phoenix, while the old man might have Flamel's Elixir of Life. Fantasy? He definitely has Flamel's gold—his books clearly don't balance, and everything the Order members donated to him is sitting in Gringotts, registered to the heirs of those who donated the money.
Let's say I can surpass him in Dark magic, I even know how, but in Light…
I have one idea, even crazier than a tearless phoenix that speaks Parseltongue. When I told Bella my plan, she looked at me with bulging eyes and asked, "Is that even possible?" I'll have to test it. It's not my style at all, but it won't be the first time I've had to play the good guy.
In Dark magic, the most powerful curse is a mother's. The reverse is also true. The main thing is to slightly modify the blood protection ritual.
I've already taken blood from Delphi, Bellatrix, and Barty, but I still haven't felt the power of love within me.
If Albus had spoken of "the power of friendship," it wouldn't even be worth trying—friendship implies reciprocity. But love doesn't require it.
This is how I came to a potential solution: send Bellatrix to the past to bring Merope here. Her blood and magic, in addition to the rituals already performed, will give me… a simulation of Light magic.
The plan seemed impossible, but if you think about it… I need to prepare Bella very well—give her instructions, load her with artifacts and shields so she doesn't change anything: not breathe the air of the past, even compensate for the gravitational pull of her body. She will find Merope in the past on the eve of her death, we'll pull her out, do what's necessary, and then return Merope to the same instant and let her die. And we won't change a thing!
The only thing that bothered me was the system of enormous Time-Turners I had built in the Department of Mysteries.
And the room, isolated from the outside world, where I must wait for Merope. I won't have much time. And if something goes wrong—the Department of Mysteries will lose part of its premises, and I will have to undergo rebirth again. In that case, I'd have to plant a pre-made "Merope's corpse" in the past.
I would have gone myself, but who knows—what if an error splatters me across time, regardless of my "vessels"? After all, I didn't have vessels back then!
I sat in the special room and waited for Bellatrix's return.
POV of Bellatrix, formerly Black, then Lestrange, now Slytherin.
She felt like a giant aquarium fish: hovering a few inches above the floor of the attic of Wool's Orphanage, shielded by many protective and concealing charms that the Lord himself had cast in addition to her own. She had done this many times on raids, but this was a special occasion: she was in the distant year of 1926. She knew the Master would be born on December 31, 1926, but not the exact time, so she had to arrive at 11:59 PM on December 30th and wait.
She had never doubted the boundless genius of the Dark Lord and the superiority of wizards over Muggles. Right now, Bellatrix felt it to the fullest. Intellectually, of course, she had perceived wizarding superiority before, admired it to some extent, but that was all. She saw a completely unfamiliar and somehow smaller Muggle London, where clumsy automobiles and even two-wheeled hansom cabs moved about! Real two-wheeled cabs, dusty and dented, not some imitation vintage carriage for gawking tourists. The charms providing her with air and analyzing it showed that the surrounding atmosphere contained far more smoke and very few modern exhaust fumes.
She observed the street crowd—Muggles in top hats and bowlers, grimy laborers, women in long dresses. This was not a theater, not actors. Live Muggles, talking and sweating, happy and sad, busy with their own affairs, almost like people. These fools didn't even suspect they were being watched by those who were immeasurably above them in origin, ability, and purpose.
She looked at the Muggles of the past but thought of wizards. Now she fully understood the Master's plans for reorganizing the magical world: the first half of the twentieth century—an era of undisguised cruelty; the 1980s—the golden age of the magical world.
But she wasn't here out of idle curiosity. She had to fulfill the will of the Lord. She would have gladly gone to take the Elder Wand from Gregorovitch for her adored… husband, but the Dark Lord had been adamant: do as commanded. She was waiting for Merope.
Twelve hours later, she saw her. A destitute vagrant knocked on the orphanage gates.
The woman looked like a Muggle tramp. There were no magical shields around her. She couldn't recognize her as a witch. The Master had forbidden the use of active scanning charms, so Bella recognized her by her face.
Bellatrix had always believed there were no ugly women: you could always do something about it. Makeup, lighting, clothes, potions, or plastic surgery. If a witch looked bad, it meant she was either incompetent, poor, or indifferent to herself. Now she saw how all three reasons had merged into one.
Merope wasn't hideous. She had no hunchback or legs of different lengths. But the overall impression was dreadful. Looking at Merope, she understood where male homosexuals came from: you couldn't sleep with someone like that without a love potion.
The only good thing one could say about Merope was that she was young, about nineteen.
The Lord had shown her in the Pensieve what his mother should look like, but in real life, she was even worse than in the images. The most charitable description of this woman was this: she had dull, inferius-like eyes, lifeless hair—some of her house-elves' rags were better—and an unattractive, pale face with coarse features. Merope's eyes were dark and, like Morfin's, looked in different directions.
To see a pure-blood wizard in such a state was disgusting. She had only one explanation: their enemies had cursed them. And they themselves couldn't remove the curse.
How could such an unworthy woman give birth to the most perfect wizard in the magical world? She must have inherited something from her pure-blood, uncursed ancestors after all.
Bellatrix followed Merope. There, they helped her to the ward…
The ward… a ward in name only! So much filth! No wonder the Master's mother died! How did anyone survive here at all?
She recalled the words of those who favored fraternizing with Muggles. Just look at them! Barely washed animals who in 1926 didn't even have those… what are they called… antibiotics! It's one thing now, but how did they survive before, especially with their dentists?
Using her concealment, Bella magically moved into the ward and, under cloaking and invisibility charms, floated above the ceiling. And then…
An incredible ecstasy began to wash over her. Could she have ever dreamed that she would see the birth of the Dark Lord with her own eyes? And not far from here was the twenty-seventh room, the place where the Lord spent his first years of life… She desperately wanted to talk to the infant or at least touch him, but the Lord's orders left her no choice.
Immediately after the birth, she needed the new mother to be left alone, but no magic was required: everyone was busy. As soon as the mother gave the child a name and said a few words about his father and her relatives, they were left alone. A couple of soundly sleeping Muggle women didn't count—no one would interfere here.
Making sure no one would disturb her, she used the modified Time-Turner her master had given her. It simply dissolved, and Bellatrix and Merope vanished from the past into the future.
End of Bellatrix's POV.
I thanked Bellatrix for her work and turned my attention to Merope. Take tissue and blood samples, grow them back to the same volume, take a few bacteria, protect Merope from modern bacteria.
Carefully record her condition, completely stabilize it, then cure her. It was as if she was trying to die, but she'd messed with the wrong person—I know how to keep someone from dying. It's a professional skill of mine.
Soon, Merope opened her eyes.
I was in a form as close as possible in appearance to Tom Riddle.
"Tom?" she asked me.
I looked into her eyes and saw no barriers—her thoughts were an open book to me.
"Yes and no. I am not your husband; I am your son."
"How is that possible? Tom was just born. I must have a fever," she replied.
Smiling, I touched her forehead with my palm. Then I waved my hand, casting a wandless spell.
"The fever is gone," I said. A little exaggeration wouldn't hurt. "You are healthy. You've had a hard time. I thought no sick person in the world had ever been so ill. Suddenly I felt it—you were already dying. And I thought: this is it. But I managed to pull you back."
Nothing serious. Diphtheria, tuberculosis, the effects of prolonged starvation, hypothermia, and other joys of life on the street. And a lack of will to live. This was what Tom Riddle had always feared: being nothing, dying foolishly—from disease, from hunger, from a knife, from a bomb.
To the woman's credit, she had focused on protecting the fetus, and her magic had saved Tom; otherwise, there would certainly have been a miscarriage.
"I was dying," she replied. "Are you God?"
What are you talking about? I'm just learning. Besides, God is omnipotent from the start, almost like Albus Dumbledore, while I'm just getting there step by step.
"No, no, Mom, I'm not God," I answered. "Just pretending. I am Tom Riddle, your son." I smiled even wider. I say this because she can't possibly know who Voldemort is. To save time on explanations, I switched to Parseltongue. "I am your son, I already like you. I brought you here because I wanted to see you."
I changed her clothes with a spell and telekinetically brought food, water, and a mirror to her. If she was even a drop of a woman, it should work.
A wave of my hand, and the room filled with bizarre images.
"See, Mother? This is not what you think. These are not illusions. I have a wife and children, your grandchildren. Things are not like in your time. We are happy and content with everything, and we have enough gold."
I showed her Marvolo's ring—the Resurrection Stone—and an exquisite copy of Slytherin's Locket.
Merope stared at me like a rabbit at a snake.
"What year is it?"
"The year of my victory. 1984. Look!" I showed her the documents confirming Tom Gaunt's right to a seat in the Wizengamot and, obeying my will, the room filled with new colorful lights—an impressive but useless spell. The main thing was to shield her eyes beforehand to avoid damaging her retinas. Following that, I conjured flowers for her, thankfully I had practiced on Neville's grave. The flowers were like red and blue flames. They blazed, sparkling with cool, elongated petals. The corollas were large and as blue as the moon. "These are for you, Mother. Don't be surprised that I do this without a wand. I am a great wizard."
At that, she finally believed and threw her arms around me, thankfully I was standing without any shields.
I told her how much I missed her and how I wanted to see her just once.
After about half an hour, she recovered from the overdose of emotions and began to think with her head.
"Tom… this is a Time-Turner, isn't it? You can't play with time!"
"It's safe. I've foreseen everything."
"Yes, yes, of course, I really appreciate everything you've done!" she exclaimed, still in Parseltongue. "I can't stay here. This will end badly."
Rare perceptiveness. Alison was already flooding me with messages—things were going even worse than I thought. Energy of an inexplicable nature was accumulating in the compensators, and it was going to blow soon. Merope does not belong to this time, and it's trying to pull her back with increasing force. The seriousness of the situation was indicative: Alison was already in the deepest bunker. So what? In the navy, the captain goes down with the ship; it's not like that with us. Alison is devotion itself, as long as he's not being forced to die.
"I don't know what's happening, my Lord," he informed me. "I hope you pulled Merlin from the past and are torturing him for his secrets. But we need to wrap this up quickly."
The Merlin idea is a bad one: I don't know exactly where or how he died, he's a great wizard himself and a historical figure. But Merope… besides, I don't plan on changing anything…
"Don't you want to see your grandchildren?" I asked.
"I want to more than anything! But I know it's not for me. A mountain of feelings will crash down on me that my heart cannot contain."
"Mom, I really didn't want to tell you this… I hoped I wouldn't have to, that there would be no need. But you leave me no choice."
I cast a new spell that showed a new picture. I had already plundered Merope's grave, but making a new one was no trouble.
The woman reached out a hand to the illusion, and her hand passed through the image.
The cemetery lay before us in the bright light of an autumn afternoon. A gloomy granite slab grew in the picture—it grew, came closer, filled everything, until nothing else was visible. She read the inscription in English once, twice, a third time. Merope Gaunt. And her date of birth, and date of death: December 31, 1926.
"Take it away," she asked me quietly.
I removed the picture.
"I'm sorry, Mother."
"I felt it was coming to this."
"Back then, you never woke up again," I replied. "You died on December 31, 1926. I grew up in an orphanage."
"Forgive me, Tom."
"I don't blame you for anything. But you could have done so much more!"
She began to sob hoarsely.
"You see, your father and I," she began.
"I know everything. He also died soon after."
The sobs intensified.
"Stop," I cut her off. "Listen. Listen to me. You are still alive—right? Here, now, you are alive? You are breathing and feeling, correct?"
She nodded silently.
"So then…" I leaned forward in the darkness. "I brought you here. Mother, I am giving you another chance. An extra month or so. Do you think I didn't mourn you? I searched for you, and then I saw the headstone that Morfin had placed, and I thought—you were gone! The thought just killed me, believe me. It just killed me! I spared no expense or effort to find some way to you. You've been given a reprieve—a short one, true, very short. The current head of the Department of Mysteries says if we're very lucky, we can keep the channels of Time open for two months. He will keep them open for you for two months, but no longer. We, the living, need you, we need you very, very much."
"It's hard for me to understand what you've done for me," she told me. The room slowly filled with light. But not my own. "You give me a little more time, and time is more precious and necessary to me than anything, it is my enemy, and it seems I can't thank you in any way." She faltered. "And when the time is up? What then?"
"You'll return to the hospital, Mom, to 1926."
"Is there no other way?"
"We cannot change Time. We only took you for a moment. And we will return you to that hospital bed at the same moment we took you. That way, we won't violate anything. All of this is already history. By living with us now, in the future, you won't harm us. But if you refuse to return, you will harm the past, and therefore the future, much will be overturned, there will be chaos."
"Two months," she said.
She told me about her life. About an eternal autumn. She spoke of a desolate darkness, of loneliness, of how small an unwanted person is. She spoke of an eternal but trampled love. And also—of her newborn son, and what he felt like to the touch, and of a sense of high destiny, of the frantic delight with which one finally wants to live, leaving all past sorrows behind. She spoke and spoke, for forty minutes, until she was hoarse.
It was time. I simulated that something had gone wrong. The room shook.
"Mom, something's gone wrong. And now we have much less time."
"I don't care what happened, how, or why," Merope retorted. "I know one thing: I'm staying!"
"I've just been informed that everything is going to blow up big time soon and you'll be dragged back regardless,"—well, not that soon.
"Back to nineteen twenty-six? To the cemetery, under the stone?" Merope said, closing her eyes. "I don't want that, Tom. I wish I didn't know about this, it's scary to know such things…"
Her voice died away, she buried her face in her hands, and froze like that.
"But maybe…" she suggested, and I saw a kind of mad spark in her face. "I'm healthy now, right? You'll send me back healthy? I'll get up and show those gravediggers. I'll go to Knockturn Alley to sell my nails and hair, somehow save up for a wand, and then I can work as a dishwasher at the Leaky Cauldron. I'll just get you out of the orphanage… Or… I'm a pure-blood, I'll get myself in order, find some rich half-blood who wants to marry into a pure-blood family, and hello, marriage of convenience. Or maybe…"
"All of that is impossible," I cut in.
"Well… what if?"
"Mom, you'll destroy everything."
"What—everything?"
"The connection of things, the course of events, life, the entire system of what is and what was, which we have no right to change. I could die in the past war, your grandchildren won't be born. Besides, I am not omnipotent. If I try to save you, the Unspeakables and Aurors will show up here. I can't kill them all, I'll just die myself. But I will still fight."
"Don't!" she said. "What if I run away and go back without your help, Tom?"
"They have the Time-Turners under control. We can't leave this room. They agreed to the experiment, but they're keeping it under control…"
"Forgive me, Tom. I really don't want to die. Oh, how I don't want to! Especially when you know what you have to live for!"
I walked over, squeezed her hand.
"Look at it this way: you've achieved the impossible—you've won a few extra hours from death! Think about that, and you'll feel better."
"Thank you. But haven't you spent too much? Do you have enough to feed your family?"
"I do. Don't worry about me," I replied seriously.
And now comes the moment for which this was all conceived.
"I so want to do something for you. To compensate for my absence by your side…"
"There is something you can do. The ritual of maternal protection."
"I've never heard of it… And I… I'm a mediocre witch… and I don't have a wand… Do you have one?"
I showed her one of my wands.
"You don't have to do anything, just sincerely wish to help me, regardless of your own death. And drop a bit of your blood on this mirror."
I had already drawn the runes in advance, covering them with plaster. Nothing should be left to chance. Besides, I don't need standard blood protection—Albus will break through that too.
She pricked her finger on a fork and stained the mirror with her blood. Then one of my golems, which was humanoid and wore the robes of an Unspeakable, entered the room. He handed her a vial with a potion. She drank it immediately. Her condition began to rapidly revert to its previous state.
"Farewell, Tom!" she cried. "You have your father's eyes!"
Almost instantly, she fell to the floor.
The runes in the room lit up—first I saw it with my magical sight through the plaster, then the plaster began to dissolve. The worse Merope got, the better it was for me.
I gave Alison the signal. Bella and the Lestranges wouldn't let him take a step. Pop. Merope vanished. Merope went back to the past, to be there and then, from where we took her. In the exact same condition, in the same clothes, and with the same bacteria.
What would I say to Albus when we met? She got everything she wanted and died. Few are so lucky!
I writhed on the floor. My new golems entered the room and began to push me into a cauldron of turquoise-colored potion. I'm boiling in my own juices far too often.
About fifteen minutes later, along with the Resurrection Stone, I climbed out of the concoction and went to one of the training grounds.
It was time to test something.
Remembering my feelings after Auschwitz, I tried to cast Light magic. Nothing happened. No, the sacrifices were not in vain. Every sacrifice brought me closer to my goal. If you bang your head against a wall long enough, you can break it. Usually, it's your head, but sometimes—it's the wall.
I am the most skilled Dark wizard, unhindered by scruples and in possession of the Resurrection Stone. But that's not enough. Blood will be the answer to everything. The blood of those who love you. Barty's blood, Bella's blood, Delphi's blood, Merope's blood. Their blood is in my veins. And blood is magic.
An effort of will—not even a spell, I change the structure of my hand with metamorphmagus abilities, and my hand is covered in my blood. I cast a spell I've tried hundreds of times. From my hand, an Arrow of Light shoots towards the target.
My laughter fills the training ground. No, I haven't gone mad—finally, after so many years of strain, I've done it!
With my right hand, I conjure a black mass; with my left, a piercing golden one. And I hurl them forward.
Wondering how Albus trains, after half an hour I find the right rhythm: my first "Song of Light and Darkness" demolishes the target.
I've had happy moments in my life. But now…
To obtain Light magic that won't be extinguished by the Dark, Light magic that can be used without looking back!
Of course, not everything is perfect: my Light magic is defective in at least two ways. I can only cast it using my own blood. It seems I am the world's only Light Blood Mage… Albus will have a heart attack.
And secondly, some light spells cannot be cast with blood.
No, I didn't become a great Light wizard in an instant. Power, like a flower, needs time to bloom.
But the simplest thing: to combine Light and Dark Spells to obliterate Dumbledore, in case everything else fails, I can do that.
I let Bellatrix into the training ground to show her my success. Otherwise, who knows—in battle, she might think I'm Albus in disguise.
"My Lord, promise me you will kill Dumbledore, even if you hit me," she commanded me.
Well, the original plan was for me to fight while you sit with the children under a Fidelius, but if you insist… Barty and Delphi had gone to New Zealand with fake documents, I hid the other vessels among the children of Muggle families in countries where we had truces, and one was under a Fidelius with Edward.
"I promised you: you will be at the center of events. You and I will meet Albus at our Ancestral Source. And as for area-of-effect attacks… only as a last resort! And only for the sake of our children."
She looked at me with eyes full of love. But there was no time.
I still needed to make part of Harry a Horcrux. Then finish the final preparations: place the hostages, allow a leak by dictating a letter to Dolohov.
Me-7 was talking with Dolohov under a Time-Turner. I had already checked him with Legilimency and Veritaserum beforehand.
"Antonin," I began, "let's dispense with all these Lords, Slytherins, and other respects which I know you feel for me. I have one order for you. You must become a conspirator! Right now."
"Against whom, my Lord?" Dolohov inquired.
"Against me," I smiled.
"Why the fuck would I do that?!" he replied, somewhat indignantly and profanely.
"What do you mean, why?" I feigned surprise. "Look, because of me, Elena won't have you. You were the leader of the militants until I appeared out of nowhere. Some upstart came along, I'm talking about myself, and deprived you of power in your own group. Not only that, from the business with Muggles that everyone knows about, I take more for myself, much more than you. I dispose of the land like Mordred—gave it to Elena, and she—to the werewolves. I don't torture Muggles properly—without cause. I denied you a promotion. Just write a request, right now, I'll deny it. And ask me publicly. You can pick a fight with Bella. I've already warned her. I can't seem to kill Albus. If that's not enough, come up with a couple more reasons."
"And what do I get out of this, and how will I carry out my cunning plans?" Dolohov asked with a smile.
Sometimes I forget the caliber of my workforce… Soon first-years at Hogwarts will be talking like this…
"You'll get a lot," I reassured Dolohov. "Albus will kill me, you'll get Elena. And you'll do it simply. You hand me over to Dumbledore, he kills me with the Elder Wand. Then you tell the others you were trying to save the Lord from a terrible murder, but you were too late. It is our Lord's fate—to die in the prime of his life, youth, and beauty. You become terribly sad and gather the Death Eaters. With a heavy sigh, they elect you as the new Dark Lord. My wife is wandering who knows where, I have no heir, what's to stop them? And then you begin to reap the rewards of your brilliant betrayal, together with Elena."
"You are immortal, the only question is when you will return. And my death will be very painful; I suspect you could pull a traitor back from the other side even if I manage to kill myself first. The Death Eaters won't believe it… And the locals won't elect a foreigner as leader. The local snobs, Malfoy, Lestrange, they'll never accept me. Besides, one becomes the Dark Lord by right of might. Elena and Bellatrix will torture me together. Carrow will hand them the instruments. Burke and Selwyn will fight over the fragments of my mortal body. Barty will destroy my mind with soul-saving speeches. They won't believe it, my Lord."
"They will," I chuckled. Hardly anyone knows about the inner workings, and here 'the power of love' is involved. Besides, I'll leak a few more things, and Albus will feel that I'm there.
"Maybe," Antonin said after a minute. "The Dark Lord mistreats his vassals, I've had a grudge against him for a long time. My Lord, this could work. Who are we cutting up? When?"
This one is almost normal. I don't have vassals, I have a collection of maniacs and sadists! And that's a good thing! I could have used Malfoy, but no Englishman would have believed in Malfoy's honesty or his love for anything other than money. Having received a share of the profits for his own disposal, he became so loyal to me that it sometimes creeps me out. One shouldn't love money that much, one shouldn't. Especially, one shouldn't be so loyal to the one who helps earn that money. No one would believe him in principle, and I'm afraid that at the threat of my untimely death, Lucius would start killing everyone who was near my body and didn't save my mortal shell. I'll have to keep him busy with something later, I have an idea…
"Those who want to deprive us of our income. Albus's party. Neither for themselves, nor for us…"
"I'll tear them to pieces!" Antonin hissed, almost in Parseltongue. "Where are they? I'll give them 1918! They are our Muggles, not theirs! I'll set the werewolves on them, and they'll chew them to bits with their teeth…"
And what did you think, that I'd offer up my own people to be killed?
I looked at the nearly silently raging Dolohov. It's contagious. One shouldn't love prosperity, wealth, respect, and all the rest so much. Look at Albus Dumbledore—a stoic. A brilliant man. Family died? Order of the Phoenix destroyed? Removed from his posts? Dumbledore sighs and indifferently accepts all of fate's blows. Neville burned—to hell with him. I killed him kindly, I'm not guilty of anything. Had a falling out with the goblins—it happens. Snape is a traitor? That's fine too. Better he betrays me and the Order of the Phoenix than Lily.
Although no, the last two points are not yet obvious to Albus.
"Enough," I ordered. "What's got you so worked up? So Dumbledore and his half-wits want to do something epically nasty to us, what's the problem? What's the surprise? Let them."
"Who betrayed us?" croaked Dolohov, pale with rage.
"I did," I confessed. "I leaked some information to them. We're using live bait."
Dolohov calmed down abruptly. A couple of minutes of thought, and he looked at me with a smile.
"You were framing the dead Rodolphus Lestrange?" Antonin inquired.
"I didn't frame him," I said harshly. "He was foolish on his own. I do not tolerate betrayal from my servants. I intervene before they decide to do it. You are the only candidate who can play the part convincingly, who will be believed by all sorts of unsavory characters like Albus. It's impossible to play you blind, and unnecessary, which is why I initiated this conversation today. Are you in the game or not?"
"Of course," Antonin grinned. "Who should I be expecting to establish contact?"
Me-8 was talking to Dolohov, but that's not what occupied me.
Me-9 was working.
Why should only Albus have a prosthetic hand? I'll find a donor for a hand and make myself a hand-Horcrux.
Why not? What is the purpose of a Horcrux? To live. Where will a Horcrux be safer than always with me? Nowhere. And Albus… let's just kill him. You and I are in the same boat.
Time to work.
December 31, 1926. Merope Gaunt.
Merope, fighting fever, pain, and magical exhaustion, walked along the corridor, leaning against the wall. She wanted to see her little son one last time.
But they found her.
"Miss!" one of the Muggle women shouted.
"Yes?" she said, fighting the pain and bleeding.
"You gave us a fright, miss, we thought you'd disappeared from the ward."
"Disappeared?"
"Where have you been?"
"Where? Where have I been?" They led her down the filthy corridors; she followed obediently. Her head was clouding over. Everything seemed to be floating away… "If I told you where… you wouldn't believe me anyway. I needed to use the lavatory."
"Here is your bed, you shouldn't have gotten up. The lavatory… I'll bring it now… You are too agitated!"
"You think so?" Merope muttered. "So it was a dream? Maybe… A good dream…"
She sank onto her deathbed, from which emanated the faint, clean scent of her predestined end, a near end that smelled of filth. The moment she touched the bed, she fell asleep.
Her breathing stopped. Death consumed her.
End of Merope Gaunt's POV.
In Magical Britain in 1984, a charitable foundation named after Merope Gaunt was established by a person who wished to remain anonymous. A monument to Merope herself also appeared, which, in the eyes of the common folk, was far too ugly. Years pass, and flowers appear again and again on Merope Gaunt's grave. And it would seem there's nothing strange about that, for the fund has helped many. But these flowers appear every night. As if they fall from the sky. Huge, red-and-blue, and no botanist can say where they grow. The flowers blaze, sparkling with cool, elongated petals, they are like red and blue flame.
POV of Albus Dumbledore.
Albus checked the letter and memories from Antonin Dolohov for the hundredth time. Maybe the recently made magical eye was malfunctioning? It was too simple, as if he were being led into a trap. Yet everything seemed plausible: a Death Eater, much like Snape, was asking him to kill Voldemort and his child, but to leave the woman—Elena—for himself. "Elena"... a difficult question. On the one hand, there was no Elena; no one had ever seen the Lord and his student in battle at the same time, it was just some strange game of Voldemort's. But on the other hand, Snape had brought news that he had seen Elena while Voldemort was in the painting.
But now he knew where and how to apply his strength… And he imagined what, or rather who, the seventh Horcrux was.
He desperately wanted to consult with Flamel, but what for? Half the first-years at Hogwarts would say his current plan was inept, monstrous, senseless, and consisted almost entirely of 'ifs'. Even compared to his previous plans.
Albus conceded that Flamel, in a personal meeting, might persuade him to leave with him "into a new dawn." No, he was needed here.
He had already developed a scheme of rituals; the only thing that bothered him was what to do afterward, when he would have no less power than Voldemort at Azkaban and an enhanced, but dying, Elder Wand.
He had always thought that thoughts could be anything. Thoughts meant nothing until they turned into actions.
But now, it was physically painful for him to think.
Imprison the Death Eaters? They would be released as soon as he died.
Kill them all? Gellert would have appreciated that. But Gellert showed exactly what should not be done under any circumstances. And besides, he knew for certain—in the Lestrange house, he had made an unforgivable mistake.
People should not be killed. Except, perhaps, for Voldemort. The problem was that even now he saw a path to victory, and for that, he only needed to surpass Grindelwald and Voldemort in cruelty. Some considered him a saint. They were mistaken. He saw perfectly well the temptation of easy solutions, of plans born from a single purpose—to not exert oneself. The shadow of Grindelwald—"the greatest prophet of all time and nations"—sometimes "knocked" on his door too, haunting all politicians, whispering to turn the people into an inexhaustible "expendable resource" on the path to personal immortality or glory. And the issue here isn't the debate "on the role of the individual in history" or "the price of the question." Even if Grindelwald had succeeded and the country "put on the rack" by Gellert had been economically and magically modernized and become a "superpower the size of the globe." The issue is not the well-known metaphor that "Grindelwald gave Germany its demons," which is the quintessence of deliberately primitive and cynical notions about his "merits to the country and the people." All these conversations are secondary and this is not the time for another flare-up. Even now, in certain circles, Grindelwald is, in the eyes of many, the embodiment of the "ideal ruler," possessing the inalienable qualities of a "national leader," a "chief." A "hero" who went into battle himself, who was not afraid to get his hands dirty, who took nothing for himself.
It would be more illustrative to imagine that Grindelwald had won, or simply to look at his propaganda from the inside. The mythology of Grindelwald was formed by power, beginning, as is known, with Grindelwald himself, who personally corrected the course of history. This is a consciously constructed image, intended not only for one wielder of power but for reproduction, for political inheritance. Herein lies its particular danger and meaninglessness. It is a political myth, as a rule, intended solely to try again and again to become reality. The myth consists of many important parts. The very first of them is the retouched and in places simply rewritten biography of the "leader," after reading which an image of a "sun without spots" emerges. Gellert was one of the first wizards of the century to implement the principle of "unpredictable history," first rewriting his personal biography, then the history of the party he seized, and then the history of the entire country. He didn't have enough power for the world. This fairy tale about Gellert embodies the matrix of the "only correct choice," in which all other options for the development of history appear absolutely catastrophic, causing panic and paralysis of will. A special place is occupied by the factor of fear: fear of losing the "father of nations," fear of being left without a "wise leader," fear of not seeing a guide. This all turns the people into a herd, calming down only at the sight of a pointing finger.
Gellert reinforced the notion of the irrationality of the people as a led mob, justified the inevitability of the leader's enemies, who are very tellingly called "national traitors," and fully justifies their moral and physical destruction—both personal, under his own aim, and mass. And if they are to be killed anyway—why not use them beneficially? Let's feed the demons. It was Gellert who formulated the thesis that the struggle intensifies as the "common good" approaches. Gellert turned the people into a semi-policeman, one of whose main tasks was to seek out enemies and inform on them, to proactively show vigilance, to publicly demand the death of the "rabid dogs."
As a result, he managed to turn the people into executioners and sadists, to fully justify violence as the main tool of state and country management. The destruction of political competitors, the predatory expropriation of property, the liquidation of entire estates and peoples, the drenching of failures on the war fronts in blood are presented not only as justified but as necessary sacrifices, where the "sacrificer" evokes reverence, and his victims—either contempt and hatred (for enemies) or humble sympathy and compassion (for the fallen in war).
Gellert himself preemptively justified the mass death of millions of people as inevitable and necessary national calamities; he formulates the fate of the people as the main victim, but publicly—the main object of the government's concern. The dead are silent, and those who survive must be happy. It fully justifies the absence of freedom as the basis of social life. According to the concept, the people are free to love the leader, serve the leader, bow before the leader. Other freedoms do not exist. It fully justifies the absence of freedom of conscience, freedom of belief, the right to choose. The state settles into the gut of each individual person and justifies the destruction of anyone in whom the state did not take root. The myth of Gellert is based on total state agitation and propaganda. It provides for "a lie for salvation," the creation of an ideal picture of life before the people, in which faith in a happy present becomes a sacred duty for everyone, and those who doubt await concentration camps, torture, death. Gellert himself corrupts culture with ideology: he divides works of art and culture into two categories—correct and incorrect, useful and harmful. The former are encouraged, the latter are denigrated and often liquidated along with their authors and bearers.
Built on the assumption of material well-being, Gellert's concept promotes poverty and reduces labor productivity: the personal value of labor is completely devalued. Labor can only be "for the Motherland," "for the party," "for the leader," but not for the person himself. It justifies mass forced labor, the role of the people as a "labor force" that must be learned to exploit. The cheaper, the better. Those who work well are hated in the country: after these "labor feats," the mandatory production quotas are raised for everyone. The leader himself—let's say, Gellert—is a fairy tale about a total manager, a superman, a bearer of super-intellect and super-talent.
The ruler in this state receives the moral right to everything—first and foremost, to the destruction of obstacles in his path. Madness is presented as the highest manifestation of reason. The state, power, becomes a super-value, completely dominating the people. A person who does not love power cannot find a place for himself in this system; he is not just superfluous or poor in it, he is an alien in it. Ideally—either tortured or dead. The relationship between a person and the state is higher than the relationship between a person and another person. The alien prevails over one's own.
The concept itself presupposes a complete perversion of the meaning of the words that form the very foundation of human life: whether family or happiness. "Familial responsibility" is introduced for a "sin against the state." The son is responsible for the father. It justifies the betrayal of one's neighbor and perjury. It justifies any mistakes of the state, any mistakes of power before the people, before a person. Power receives the right to make a mistake, justified by the very fact of its higher status in relation to the people. At the same time, personal responsibility for any mistakes and crimes is removed from the leader; they are all linked in the public consciousness with subordinates and malicious persons, overt and covert enemies, whose exemplary punishments strengthen the power and authority of the leader.
And the most terrible thing is that such an attitude guarantees the leader a "place in history" forever, because pages soaked in blood are harder than others to tear from the annals. Instantly, a villain and bloodsucker becomes the savior of the nation, a murderer and executioner becomes a benefactor who miraculously saved those who miraculously survived themselves. The myth of Gellert, which allows one to hate and fear the people, but publicly speak of love for the people, gives rise to the illusion of political immortality, which can be entered by governing the state and the people in a barbaric manner. It is the justification of immortality on ash and bones. The myth of Gellert is the hope of a political scoundrel dreaming of nationwide and eternal glory, which completely frees from conscience. It is the greatness of one, standing on the blood and tears of millions, and this greatness should cause tears of emotion and happiness in the blood relatives of the innocently murdered. The main thing the bearer of power must understand is the possibilities of political and personal justification, the necessity and usefulness of any deed.
But Albus sees it differently. This path is simply a bloody "cure" for the inferiority complex that haunts degenerates and failures, the complete destruction of morality in politics, the justification of lies and the deification of the devil, the permission to consider one's ravings, one's magic wand, one's pencil as the finger of history, the hand of fate.
And this is not just a myth: it is a terrible temptation for all who possess power or strive for more power. This temptation is capable of morally destroying any person who has yearned to rise above people, to remove any moral barriers and encumbrances before this person. The road of life will pass through the hell of omnipotence, but it can be lined with paradise trees that grow on the blood of people and bear the fruits of vanity.
This is not his path.
But what is his path? The Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge, has publicly called Dumbledore a "traitor and a scoundrel."
Fudge is free to have any opinion of him. And even to voice it.
But the point now is different—how not to be a traitor and a scoundrel in Magical Britain. What example does the ruling group give the country?
How to become a respected person in Magical Britain? A role model? A statesman? Like Voldemort?
Surround yourself with sycophants and lackeys. Destroy freedom of speech. Destroy elections. Settle into power forever. Attack weak countries that are unlucky, while avoiding the strong like fire. Violate your own Constitution and take part of the population from the victim countries. Make it so that in the coming months, your "friends" become millionaires. Seize the country's economy, planting in it something between business and a mafia—placing your comrades at their head. Rob the Muggle world's population. Deprive Muggles of prospects, driving them under "targeted extractions." Lie to everyone, the country and the world, about everything. Always and everywhere. And also—kill and torture people, turning enemies into a resource, something like coal, and friends into plants: water them with money—they grow, don't water them—they wither. That's all.
That is how not to be a traitor and a scoundrel in Magical Britain.
Albus thought. This time he would not kill the innocent. He would not kill anyone at all, and it didn't matter how difficult it would be. But Voldemort alone would answer for all his crimes.
He had never liked prophecies. But now one didn't need to be a prophet. With simple logic and analysis of facts, one could imagine what the future would be like if his plan succeeded. And it gave him no peace.
Voldemort is dead.
The Dark Lord does not eat, does not drink, does not move, does not cast spells, does not think, does not breathe, his heart does not beat.
The mummy of the Dark Lord, displayed before all mortal humanity, is the most visible and objective evidence of the cessation of Voldemort's earthly physical life.
And Voldemort is alive—alive because the consequences of his activities are just as visible and continue to live; dissolved, like blood, in the soil of history, fused at boiling point into the destinies of the wizards who revered and hated him.
The "revolution" has won, an unknown phenomenon in the magical world, the key word in understanding the philosophy and psychology of revolutionaries. In Latin—simply a coup.
The societies and states of the magical world, under the influence of Voldemort's inhuman will, completely changed their coordinate system.
Wizards broke and destroyed the social and state skeletons that preceded them, tore living ties, replacing them with the fruits of their cosmic imagination, fleetingly and uncompromisingly brought to life.
Wizards are now people who recognize their right to make themselves happy, including against the will of other people.
On this path, they step over and reject doubts, part with many simple human feelings, renounce joys and weaknesses. A wizard is a superman, a hero. His tears dry up, he feels like a messiah and embodies the Highest Court, deliberately scorning the judgment of man.
Wizards are the most unhappy people, but they do not know it. And if you tell them—they will only laugh.
But their unhappiness, their human deficiency and deprivation, give birth to grief for the Muggles under their power.
People are weak.
They often themselves elevate their future destroyers to the pedestal of power. People are ready to take off and give to another, the all-powerful—the leader—their inalienable right to dispose of their own life and destiny. And from that moment, people renounce themselves.
The fates of wizards are sad.
Everything created by their fantastic energy turns out to be mortal. Wizards of different countries fight for Voldemort's legacy, devouring each other and rewriting (following the Dark Lord himself) history textbooks, constitutions, laws, leveling the graves of victims, erasing names from stones. Wizard-murderers give birth to wizard-murderers. Destroyers beget destroyers.
The new wizards always have enemies.
Enemies are just the same kind of wizards, their mirror image, their inseparable corporeal part. They are all suspicious, distrustful, cruel. And they cannot live without Dark magic. And the wizards of the new world are people at war. Because the course they follow is a course against man. It is the achievement of a goal at any cost. At the cost of blood and at the cost of life. At the cost of a soul. The previous war with Grindelwald is simply the childless and soulless daughter of the current one.
And the wizarding empires that arise on the ashes of wizards' civil wars can cover themselves all they want with bravura marches, powerful symbols, solemn anthems.
All this political cosmetic, like a Horcrux, only hides the wrinkles and ulcers of the real, sinful, and mortal face. Sooner or later, the portrait perishes, and the monster reveals its face to the world, only to perish soon after.
But the wizards of the new world have made idols of their parents, multiplying them in thousands of soulless and false statues and busts, portraits and orders.
They thus bow to them—still living or already dead—in loyalty with the zeal of militant inauthenticity. The fruits of the new course are always the corrosion of sincerity and the apotheosis of falsehood.
In the magical world, a reckoning is underway. A reckoning for everyone—involved and uninvolved, guilty and innocent—for disrespect for man, for hopeless humiliations and injustices, for the denial of the value and dignity of human life itself.
Now wizards are driven not by greed, but by despair and revenge. All this flows down the turbulent river of hatred.
Voldemort, at the end of the 20th century, led such a river's flow—the most cruel in the entire history of Magical Britain.
The flow, nine years long, took thousands of lives. It exhausted itself along with its creator a century ago and released the country. But Voldemort's cause lives on. In Voldemort's name.
Albus Dumbledore was dying, having defeated Voldemort, powerless to change anything in the world Voldemort had turned upside down.
Everything already belonged to others, no less cruel and no less ambitious politicians, but far less gifted and careful. They took an example from their teacher and went further. As they understood it. As they were raised by the Dark Lord himself. Alas, life is not mathematics. A minus times a minus makes a big minus.
But retribution for Voldemort was successful.
It does not let him go even after life—where simple mortals rest, where the human soul finds peace and reconciles with its fate. For Voldemort, who repeatedly scorned others' lives, who damaged his own soul, even personal death became inaccessible. He is forcibly confined in his mausoleum, or pantheon, or pyramid, or sarcophagus, already dead, but still not disembodied, and still restless. Even if the shell is destroyed and resurrected—he is still reborn as the same corpse. And this is more terrible than life imprisonment. Because it can last forever.
The Dark Lord belongs to the Dark Empire as a thing. As a slave.
When they were building the eternal home for Voldemort, they seriously spoke of how Dark magic would open up possibilities for resurrecting the dead.
And then Voldemort would return.
Such is the embodiment of the supreme power of the inhuman over the human.
The omnipotence of violence, as coercion to an unclaimed existence. As the apotheosis of artificial life over natural life.
Voldemort reminds us of the eternal horror of immortality.
Leave him in peace. Grant him death.
With difficulty, Albus Dumbledore emerged from his heavy thoughts.
His plan is unchanged. His last meeting with Voldemort awaits him.
Voldemort will not understand this.
He won't understand how one can leave power not feet first and not under the guarantees of a successor. He won't understand how one can leave life without clinging to it with Horcruxes.
After all, where is Voldemort to go? A murky, dangerous future awaits him everywhere.
And people like Voldemort believe that if you leave, you've lost.
That is true. He has lost.
But it is the law of life—everyone loses sometime. It's normal.
What's not normal is when power is endless.
Because such power is violence against the natural course of life. It does not grant immortality, it only sows illusions.
Albus is leaving, trying to prove that change is the essence of free democracies.
Voldemort will not understand this. Only rot and decay await the Dark Lord.
And it is time for him to perform the ritual. He doesn't regret the Elder Wand at all, but he truly is sorry about the Cloak of Invisibility.