Beyond Good and Evil

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"There is no good and evil, there is only power, and those too weak to seak it."
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Chapter 1 – A Whiter Shade of Pale


The night air was cold and silent. A cloud of pure white steam hanging above an enormous cauldron emitted some light into the otherwise dark graveyard. It shone upon a tall, thin figure, standing motionlessly, his white face contrasting with his black robe. Among the graves moved a large dark mass, which upon closer inspection turned out to be a large group of black robed, hooded men. They were shuffling hesitantly towards the silent man.


In the quickly diminishing light the Dark Lord's black-clad body merged with the background of dark tombstones and the night sky, making it look like a grotesque pale face was hovering above the ground. The boiling sound that came from the cauldron was the only sound that interrupted the eerie silence. Voldemort stood motionlessly, waiting. The only thing that betrayed his state of mind was the mad gleam in his eyes, brightly burning with a dangerous red light.


Horrified fear visible through their masks, the Dark Lord's Death Eaters gathered before him. They were silent, afraid to draw their master's attention. They waited with their heads lowered, occasionally sneaking glances at the distorted, snakelike face. They waited for him to speak, to punish; they expected to hear the dull thud of a lifeless body hitting the ground at any moment.


The Dark Lord had to strain so hard to control himself it actually pained him. He had a strong mind to kill each and every one of the fools, but he knew he could not. What a disaster! He had planned for this night so carefully, anticipated it for years, meticulously plotting every move, planning for every eventuality. To see his plans crossed by a simple twist of fate – it was enough to make him scream in anger, it was almost enough to make him lose control. If Dumbledore heard of his return… all his carefully crafted plans could be thrown away, and his newly regained life would become infinitely more difficult.


Killing one or two of his followers would surely make him feel better, but he needed them more than ever now. He was aware that Dumbledore would make it very hard to find new members for his army. Anyway, he had to admit to himself that the boy's escape was no more their fault than it was his. Still, maybe a nice bit of torture… but no, now was not the time.


He could hardly believe what had happened. After his resurrection, which surprisingly happened flawless, almost all of his Death Eaters had returned. That was surprising enough, as they had all failed him miserably after his disappearance. He had Harry Potter completely in his power, he had at last gotten rid of the protection the boy's mother had installed in him, and he planned to give him a nice and painful death. And just when everything seemed to be going his way, Harry Potter managed to escape him – again. He doubted he would ever get such a good chance to kill the boy again, and he had very good reasons to want him dead.


He still could not comprehend how a half-blood boy with no particular talent could defeat him time and time again. It defied all logic, and if Lord Voldemort had believed in a power greater then himself he would have thought it must have been meddling. First an unexpected piece of powerful magic from the boy's mother – he had not expected that. No, he could not have expected it, he corrected himself. It was such a complicated and obscure branch of magic that even he didn't know much about it. He wondered where that Potter woman had learned it, though; one of the things that had kept him busy the past thirteen years.


And again tonight, when he thought the boy's luck had at last run out, something small, seemingly coincidental had saved Harry Potter. It had taken Voldemort a few lethal moments to understand what it was; when he finally recognized it for what it was, it was too late. The young wizard was gone, and there was nobody he could blame – for who could have none he and Harry Potter shared brother wands?


The Dark Lord knew he had to move. His own safety was obviously his main priority, and he could not afford to stay in one place for long. He wouldn't let the incompetent Death Eaters get away that easy, though. He glared malevolently at the black crowd in front of him.


" You fools!"


His cold voice snapped through the silence, and a collective shiver ran through the gathered Death Eaters.


" A boy… a tortured, foolish, limping boy! And you, you fools, couldn't even stop him from running half way across this graveyard and reaching that portkey! I will –"


The Dark Lord stopped for dramatic effect, and enjoyed the fear he felt radiating from the hooded crowd.


" I will deal with you later. My faithful servant at Hogwarts may still be able to finish the boy off like you could not, but we must prepare for the worst. We must leave now, for it may not take Dumbledore long to find out what happened. You will all return home and wait for my orders. I will call for you soon."


And with a last contemptuous glance Voldemort disapparated, leaving the Death Eaters speechless. The hooded figures exchanged a few looks, but no words, before the graveyard filled with the sound of rapidly exploding firecrackers as the Death Eaters disappeared.


***


Voldemort reapparated in a clearing in a forest near Turda in Transsylvania. Before he had lost his powers this had been an ideal hideout, because the cooperation between the magical community here and the rest of the world had been made difficult because of Muggle political problems. However, the world had changed while he floated around without a body, and he was not sure if the place was as save as it used to be. He raised his wand and casted a strong detection charm, making sure there would be no surprises. When he was sure he would be safe he moved over to a large boulder and tapped his wand on the mossy surface. A small dark hole appeared where his wand touched the surface, and with a soft rushing sound it expanded until it was about two foot in diameter. A narrow ladder led down into the darkness.


After slowly descending the ladder Voldemort touched down onto the soppy ground with a squishing sound. He sniffed, and his nostrils filled with the decaying smell of rotting leaves. Since he was in total darkness, the opening he came in through only a small patch of starry sky in the ceiling, he supposed it was best to make some light first. He conjured a brightly shining lamp and magically sealed it to the ceiling.


The room he found himself in did not do much to lift his spirits. The floor was covered in a thick layer of vegetation, and his feet had sunk deep into the moist pulp. The walls consisted of bare rough stone and had plants and mold all over them, and the room was littered with old, broken pieces of furniture. He had not used this place in fifteen years, and it showed. With a sigh, the Dark Lord raised his wand high and got to work.


When he was done, he plopped down in a comfortable, high-backed chair feeling a little more content. He looked around, and decided his conjuring skills were quite as good as they used to be. The room was dry and warm, the nauseating smell was gone. The walls were lined with soft tapestry, he had conjured up a roomful of furniture, as well as a table filled with food.


The enormous setback Harry Potter's escape had caused started to feel less painful as soon as he dug into his dinner. It felt better then anything he had experienced in a very, very long while – apart from the feeling of having a real body again, he corrected himself. He had never thought about eating, sleeping or other such comforts as particularly pleasurable, until he had had to miss it for fourteen year. He picked up his wand, and for the first time in all those years he felt it like he had always felt it before, like it was a natural part of his body. He had always considered his body a bit of a hindrance, a mere vessel for his magnificent mind. However, when he had lost his body he had found his mind was not much use without it.


The night he lost his body… it had been the worst thing he had ever experienced. In all his long life of experimenting with the Black Arts he had undergone many painful transformations, but he had never even imagined anything like it. It was not just physical pain, but the surprise of it, and the endless despair… the feeling all his hard work was for nothing, the humiliation of being beaten by a year old infant. He had feared his attempts to attain immortality had been for nothing, that he was going to die, and he felt like all his hopes and dreams were being ripped away. Then he had disappeared into a black forgetfulness, for how long he had not known… Until he had one day experienced a spark of consciousness. He couldn't see, hear, feel or think, but he had known he was not completely gone; he was, to some extent, alive.


When he began to gain more consciousness he became more aware of the fact that he was still in this world, and he felt some hope. His experiments had worked, as he was not dead, and he started to think it might be possible to regain what he had lost. He was not more than a shadow of his former self, but he was able to move around, albeit slowly, he was as cunning as ever, and as he soon discovered, he could possess all sorts of creatures for a temporary relief from his cold, floating spirit form. Knowing he could not have been forgotten, and that his strengthening spirit might be detected, he hid in a forest in Albania, far away from the Aurors from the Ministry of Magic. He had been certain his loyal followers would come to his aid, and so he waited…


After a while he fell into an endless routine of possessing small animals to sustain his spirit, and he lost all sense of time. He had waited for an eternity, or so it seemed, in endless torture, without sleep or food, without the power to do anything at all, and he lost hope once more. He cursed everything; he cursed himself for suffering defeat at the hand of a little boy, he cursed his Death Eaters for forgetting him, and above all, he cursed the boy who lived.


He lost all track of time, and he was getting to the point where he could no longer sustain himself, when finally the tables appeared to have turned. A foolish young wizard wandered into his forest, and at first he was just happy to have found something besides squirrels to feed on. When he found out the man was a teacher at Hogwarts he couldn't believe his luck, and he was truly ecstatic when he learned the fabled philosopher's stone was at Hogwarts. He believed that he was not only going to get his body back, but was also going to reach the goal he had worked for all his life, immortality, in the easiest way imaginable.


However, such was not to be the fate of the great Lord Voldemort. Harry Potter crossed him again, and again he survived. Voldemort had to return to his hiding place, defeated and with even less hope for the future. For now Dumbledore knew about his current form, and he couldn't undertake anything without help from a capable wizard.


Fortunately, he knew his failed attempt to get the philosopher's stone could not have gone unnoticed. Now that it was known he was still alive, he had some hope again that one of his Death Eaters would find him. However, it was not until after more years of pain and hunger, completely cut off from the rest off the world, that he finally encountered one of his followers in the forest. After the initial surge of joy, he was disappointed once more. Wormtail was not much of a wizard, and all he could do was give him some pathetic excuse for a body that could never last long without Wormtails constant care. Wormtail had managed to bring Bertha Jorkins to him, though, and with the information he extracted from her a plan started to come together.


He had felt a lot better while he was preparing his return. Though he was still weak and depending on Wormtail, at least he now had a clear goal to work towards. He had doubted he could pull it off, because the plan was very complicated and depended heavily on Barty Crouch, who was unstable to say the least. However, Crouch had accomplished the unthinkable: he had fooled Dumbledore and everybody else at Hogwarts, and had delivered him Harry Potter.


And this very night, another miracle had been accomplished: the resurrection potion had worked. He had hoped, but he had not dared to expect it to work. It was very experimental; he had devised the potion himself, and nothing similar had ever been done before. There were no known cases of surviving the Avada Kedavra curse. He had been unimaginably relieved when the potion had worked. He lived – truly lived – once more, and he felt like everything would return to the way it was, and then he would become even more powerful.


However, his happiness had been quickly quenched. He was still furious because of Harry Potter's escape, but reason started to gain the upper hand. All in all, he knew he should be quite satisfied with the night's accomplishments. After all, he had learned a long time ago that in every plan at least one thing must go wrong, and he realized it could have been much worse. He was back, his power restored, and he could get over Potter's escape. He had to make new plans, yes, but he was sure that very soon he would have regained enough power to make a grand comeback, and then the world, wizards and muggles alike, would tremble like they had fourteen years ago.

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