AN: This story is a translation from Hungarian; if your Hungarian is better than my English, please read the original instead (Az erő, amit a Sötét Nagyúr nem ismer). I do apologise for my bad English, corrections are welcome (PM me).

The power the Dark Lord knows not

Not much has changed here in the past five years – maybe nothing. Of course the big changes had already happened before that: the Dementors had gone, the close and airless cells had been replaced with almost hotel-like apartments. These were parts of the bargain made between Riddle and the new Ministry a few months after the Final Battle.

There are house-elves here to fend for the prisoners; they might even use wands – with serious restrictions, of course. Not that I mind any of these: if they are keeping them away from our world, at least for the next few decades, it's all right with me.

Five years before, when I last time came here, I hoped I could persuade a prisoner, namely Severus Snape, to help me in some research... He rejected me, even if it would have meant that his imprisonment would have been suspended, provided that I, like a guardian, had taken responsibility for him...

Maybe that was the matter: his pride did not allow that... Or more likely he judged it impossible to evolve a special version of the Mind-Healing Potion which could help my parents.

Well, if he thought so, he was both wrong and right. The Potion finally got completed, it even worked (and in passing opened a new chapter in theory of Healing), but that still was not enough: I had to realise that my parents' condition is much worse than I had thought: it were not only their minds that had been damaged, but their souls had broken as well.

Still, maybe I ought to talk with him again, to boast with my results... Well, strictly speaking, they are not exactly my results, for I myself hardly did more than the botanical background-work. Maybe he would be surprised to find out that he was wrong, I did find someone (and one of the greatest minds of the Century, not less) who did not mind spending five years with this research.

Finally I give up the idea, it would be too childish, and right now I have something more important to do: I have to talk with Bellatrix Lestrange; she is the only one alive from those who are responsible for my parents' tragedy.

No, it's not revenge what I want – not any more. The only thing I want from her is a memory; the memory of that terrible night. That would be my only hope to learn something, anything, a little detail that might perhaps help me to find a way to heal my parents.

I have spent a lot of time thinking how to persuade her to do what I'm asking for, as I have nothing to promise and nothing to threaten with... Finally, the solution is easier than I thought: Bellatrix is just happy to show me what she thinks one of the highlights of her life.

I knew that it would be horrible, but I did not think that I would see myself as a one-and-half years old toddler... unconsciously, under the effect of some stunning spell...

In this moment, I cannot tell if reviving this nightmare worth it or not; I cannot listen to the details, I can only hope that later, going through on this memory in a Pensive again and again, I might find something useful; right now I should just leave, and try to forget Bellatrix' pleased face.

I don't know why I cannot leave her. What do I expect from her? Regret? Repentance? It's clear that she doesn't regret anything, not I even the fact that everything they did was entirely pointless: my parents knew nothing about Voldemort's fate; their action was a mistake...

So it has to be the wish of revenge what I have thought I do not have... Or at least, I wish her to understand how much pain she caused me, and how senseless it was; that she destroyed her own life as much as mine, or even more so.

'Do you happen to know that Tom Riddle's ghost is able to feel regret, and he has tried to make amends?' I start awkwardly, but I know it's wrong. Of course she knows, but for her Riddle the ghost is not the former Voldemort, but a traitor whom she hates more than any living soul.

'That pathetic ghost has nothing to do with the Dark Lord!' she snaps. 'It only usurps his name and memories! But I – I am the very same person I've always been, I'll never betray what the Dark Lord fought for!

'Oh please, make me remember what it was again?' I ask bitterly. 'Pursue muggle-born wizards? Torment and murder innocent people?'

She is giving me a forgiving smile while she answers. 'You don't know what it feels like, do you? That's why you understand nothing. Nothing at all! That feeling... that sheer pleasure that fills your body and soul... That is the Power...

And yet I hoped I could make her fill regret! I should leave now, run away, I cannot win this argument; how could I explain to this madwoman that murder and torture is not the greatest pleasure life could give!?

I've already convinced myself that I don't want her death, or being tortured by Dementors... But what else, then? Her asking for my forgiveness, in tears? If so, I must be just as mad as she is...

And still, perhaps, there is something, it comes to my mind, a little thing that might help to break this morbid smugness – I wouldn't call it a revenge, but at least the situation would be less humiliating for me.

'There is a force, or rather power,' I start gingerly, 'or I should say possibility, what Voldemort has never had... Nor had Dumbledore or Harry Potter', I quickly add not to be misunderstood.

'What I'm talking about is the deepest and oldest kind of magic, older than the human race itself; some people are born with it, the others miss it.' I can tell she starts listening; she has taken the bait or at least is near to it.

'Like Metamorphmagic?' she tries to guess, showing that she is not as uninterested as she wants to seem.

'Perhaps, but much deeper and more important than that... You did have this possibility, but you have never used it.' I can tell she is in doubt, hopes that it is just a lie, but I feel no worry, because I am not lying.

'And how much would it cost me? What should I give for it?' she asks logically. 'I am too old to believe that anything in this life is free.'

'Well, it comes with some drawbacks, which cannot be helped,' I admit, 'you endured the drawbacks, but rejected the possibility, which, I repeat, was not given to Dumbledore and Riddle'.

'Is it yet another prophecy from that air-headed fraud?' she tries to find a loophole. 'Or did you read it in the latest issue of The Quibbler?' These questions, meant to be ironic, only show that how she is doubtful, and how much she hopes that this 'lost possibility' is not real, or if it is, it's not her own fault that she has never used it.

'Even if I believed you,' she tries to defend herself logically, 'even if I were sorry for having lost something so important, even in that case I should not blame myself, it would not be my fault, because I did not even know about that possibility.

'But you did know, since you were a child,' I point out triumphantly, 'it would have been the most important and happiest thing in your life, but you gave it up, you excluded yourself from it.'

She still doesn't know what I mean, but she will, very soon; and she will also know that now this chance is lost for her. 'I understand that you aren't sentenced for life-time, you will be released after some twenty years, but by then it will be too late.

'Oh, I haven't told you yet,' I continue with a new aspect, 'that it would have been the only chance to approach what Riddle wanted so desperately...

'He wanted to conquer death, didn't he? He did terrible things, not only with others, with himself as well: he broke his own souls into parts – and what did he achieve with it? It's now, after his death, that he reached something like the eternity, being a ghost – it is not what you want, is it?

'Riddle has never had a family, he grew up in orphanage, it was his obsession that he need nobody, he would find every answer and every solution alone, without anyone helping him... it might be an excuse for his terrible mistakes... But what about you? Do you have any excuse? You might live on for a hundred years or more, but what will remain of you afterwards? Nothing but the memory of a mad murderer, a scare-story... Or rather, an example, how to waste one's own live senselessly.

— O —

A few weeks later Auror Dawlish is paying me a visit to interrogate me about Bellatrix Lestrange's suicide attempt. I tell him everything sincerely, for I haven't done anything to deny or to be ashamed for.

Looking in my own heart, I'm almost surprised how much I am not interested in her fate: I feel no sorry for her attempted suicide, neither for her surviving it.

The only thing which does surprise me is Dawlish's incredulous question: 'What on earth it was, in the end?... That power, or potential, or possibility, you told her about to confuse her?'

He must be playing a joke on me: how come he hasn't found out himself yet? He is a grown-up man, around fifty; I should think he is supposed to know the things of the life... And what's worse, if I simply told him, he would feel deceived, 'It's too simple,' he would protest.'

'Look, Mr Dawlish,' I try to avoid answering his question, 'I don't want to spoil your chance to find it out by yourself; I can assure you that it is the most common and natural thing... And if you couldn't guess it, just ask your wife, she will know it, I'm sure of that.'