EPILOGUE

On a clear summer day I looked out from a window of a sturdy concrete building, patiently looking at a huge field of asphalt and concrete empty save for a single Muggle device and several wizards bustling around it. Someone seemed to have considered the room I was standing in too plain for such an important occasion, and conjured flowers and vines to decorate every surface.

There were many people in the room with me: Arthur Weasley, whom I kept an eye on in case he started to press the buttons of any of the various pieces of Muggle technology in the room; Harry and Ginny, who held each other's hands; Ron and Hermione; Remus and Sirius; Draco, Theo, Ethan and Sara; and many people from the Ministry and Hogwarts. Somewhere nearby were also Karkaroff, Flint, Derrick, Bole, Warrington, Montague and Bletchley, freed from their Unbreakable Vows of servitude.

The door opened, and everyone turned to see who was coming. Escorted by Madam Pomfrey and sitting in a magical wheelchair, there was an ancient wizard with a long white beard, long white hair and piercingly blue eyes. Albus Dumbledore, who had been freed from Nurmengard only hours after Grindelwald's defeat, had been resting for a long time, but he had recovered enough to attend the event.

Most people were at a total loss for words. Professor McGonagall, for example, had believed she had worked with Albus Dumbledore for decades, but it had been just a lie. Everyone present knew Dumbledore very well, but he had barely even heard about most of them. There were many introductions and people carefully shaking Dumbledore's frail, bony hands.

Eventually the old wizard turned his eyes upon me. I had stopped using disguising charms and had not cast them for this meeting, either.

"Tom," Dumbledore said in a weak, quiet voice. "Gellert told me a lot about you."

"He surely had a lot to tell," I said.

"Yes. However, I was told your help was crucial for his defeat. I would like speak to you in private, so that you do not need to reveal to others anything you do not want to."

Impressed by this courtesy, I cast the Anti-Eavesdropping Charm around us.

"Gellert told me what you had done," Dumbledore said. "Done to the wizarding world and to yourself. I was dismayed when I thought about it; the horrors Gellert told me about became my constant nightmares. And I knew, deep in my heart, that my own actions had played some part in what became of you. I failed you, Tom."

"Not as badly as I failed myself," I said. "There is something that you do not know. Because of Grindelwald's manipulation, I was driven into creating a Horcrux, and it was at that moment that Lord Voldemort was born. I was imprisoned in the soul container while my other self started the path that made him Grindelwald's unwitting pawn. However, I managed to break free, but I chose another path. I have learned much of the wisdom that Lord Voldemort despised, and I used it to destroy him. I am a different person now."

"I can see that," Dumbledore said. "And as long as you stay on a virtuous path, I am willing to keep your identity a secret from the rest of the wizarding world."

"Well, thank you," I said, somewhat surprised, and dispelled the charm around us.

"I hope that the world will be able to learn a lesson from how Gellert became what he became," Dumbledore said as people gathered around him. "It is not destiny that makes us what we are. We all have potential for goodness inside us, but sometimes that potential is wasted and twisted because somewhere along the way circumstances have unfortunate consequences. So it was with Gellert…"

Dumbledore sighed and stared out of the window to the asphalt field where the Muggle device was almost ready to be launched.

"Gellert did not live a happy life," he continued. "His parents were Muggles, but her mother's father was a Squib who knew about the wizarding world. After young Gellert had his first bursts of accidental magic, his father was terrified and abandoned the family shortly afterwards. That, I think, is what made Gellert so distrustful; he always expected the worst of people, and studying at Durmstrang made his heart even colder; it has never been a place for camaraderie. Gellert could not tell about his family background to anyone, and he was bullied by the rich heirs of important families who studied there. He had nothing but his talents, and soon he was envied by most of his fellow students. They discovered the truth about his heritage, and Gellert was expelled – a devastating blow to him, something that made him vengeful towards the flawed world that had treated him so unfairly.

"He tried to make a new start in Britain, and we befriended quickly. He enjoyed studying magic with someone as talented as he was, someone who accepted him as he was. But there was another who meant even more to him – my sister Ariana. She was a girl with a golden heart, and she understood Gellert in a way I was unable to. While I was too eager to plan a magnificent future in which all injustices of the world would be corrected, Ariana's compassion helped Gellert to come out of the hard shell he had built for himself out of necessity. I think Ariana was the only good person Gellert ever knew, and from her he learned that the world is not full of darkness, all the way to its very foundations. She made him a better person, and I know he loved her for it.

"Then came the fateful day when Gellert, I and my brother Aberforth had a disagreement that escalated into a fight – and at the end of it, Ariana was killed. It changed each one of us. While I realised that I was unsuitable for power, Gellert's grief and remorse started the bloodiest campaign the world has ever seen. 'I will find and unite the Hallows, Albus,' he said to me. 'And as the master of Death I will bring Ariana back, no matter what it takes.' Those were the last words he said to me before he left Britain. At that moment I had no idea into what extremes he would be willing to go.

"He acquired the Elder Wand and tried to lure the owner of the Resurrection Stone into the open. I waited while millions of people died, my guilty conscience ever hounding me. I wanted to believe that Gellert's insane plans had some vaguely noble purpose, even if a twisted one. Eventually I made the decision I had always known I had to make: to put an end to him. I missed Ariana dearly, but I knew she would not have wanted to sacrifice anyone for her sake. I fought Gellert and lost… and by losing I gave him the greatest asset he had ever had: my identity.

"As I thought about all the terrible things he had done and still kept doing, I finally became completely convinced that no matter which good intentions one might have at the beginning, the lust for power makes anyone a monster. Gellert was not the first one to use the Dart Arts for a purpose he truly believed to be a good one, and he was ensnared by the darkness like so many others. He should have let go of Ariana and tried to find a light similar to hers in someone else. It was his fixation to Ariana's goodness instead of the goodness of people in general that made him extinguish countless other small lights in the vast darkness of the world. Ariana's place is beyond the Veil, and fighting against the nature of the world, no matter how unfair it seems, can only make it even more so."

A sombre silence descended. While Dumbledore had spoken, my eyes had wandered to Ginny, and I could not miss the similarity. She was my angel just as Ariana had been Grindelwald's, and it was only because of her that I had been able to muster the power to save Harry from the monster Grindelwald had become in the absence of Ariana.

An alarm shook me into the present again.

"Everything is ready," I said. "I would give you the honour, Professor. I know the resentment caused by being locked away for half a century by someone who was once close to you."

I gestured towards the command table that Arthur Weasley had been studying with fascination. Madam Pomfrey pushed Dumbledore's wheelchair closer to the command table, and everyone looked out of the window.

"Gellert," Dumbledore sighed. "He was my friend…"

"This is not the moment to be sentimental, Professor," I said. "This must be done. As Grindelwald himself would say, it is for the Greater Good."

"You should know, Tom," Dumbledore said, "that I do not care about the Greater Good – I care about justice."

Even though it seemed like the hardest thing he ever did, Dumbledore pressed a large button marked for the purpose. The roar of a rocket engine begun, drowning numerous cries of "Wingardium Leviosa." The suddenly weightless space rocket surged upwards with incredible speed, taking an unremarkable-looking block of concrete to the skies.

It would leave the atmosphere, the Solar System and the Milky Way. Grindelwald, the master and God of Death, was petrified, his stomach had been filled with the Draught of Living Death and he was encased in a sarcophagus of concrete, stainless steel and thousands of Charms of Unbreakability. If he ever broke free from them (and also the hydrogen-freezing temperature), he would do so in the intergalactic void. There he would have nothing to do except to wait for the end of the universe.

We watched his departure until the rocket had disappeared into the blue of the sky.

The world had been saved.

Hogwarts.

After the victory celebration, I had returned home. The castle that Salazar Slytherin and his three friends had built upon the ruins of the Atlantean Temple of Magic stood proudly by the lake, the radiance of the slow summer sunset of Scotland tinting the walls and towers with red.

The revelation that Hogwarts was the source of all magic in the world did not make the place feel any more special that it had felt before. Such enormous historical significance was worthy of respect and even admiration, but the true fondness towards the castle came from my personal experiences. I had first entered the castle as a poor orphan who had sought his place in the world. I had returned there as a young man with grand plans of world domination. Now, still as a young man, I had come there just to enjoy myself.

Hogwarts felt better, in fact, now that fear, spite and a maimed soul did not chain me to an apathetic half-life. I did not need to read through books, practice spells or manipulate people in a desperate need to gain new advantages. Now, I was at Hogwarts to reward myself of the victory I had gained over myself. Just walking slowly through the grounds meant the world to me.

For a long time I admired the majesty of my home, watching the shadows of the mountains rising up the walls until night had descended.

Then, I felt a presence next to me.

Slowly, I turned to have a look.

I faced a human-like being clothed in black robes. Black was his hair, pearly white his skin and red his eyes, but the aura of horror I had felt around him was absent. Death looked serene and non-menacing; his smile was almost a gentle one.

"How are you here?" I asked.

"Sight-seeing, you could say," Death said. "I also wanted to congratulate you on your progress."

"I saw you being absorbed by Grindelwald."

Death shrugged. "Not a big deal. As long as there is life, there is death, and someone has to be the embodiment of death. Grindelwald did not claim my entire essence, it seems."

"What do you mean with my progress?"

"When we met the first time in your vision during your train ride to Hogwarts for your sixth year," said Death, "you were alone, but already horrified by the world in which all others had died. The next time, during Remus's Patronus lesson, you imagined yourself in the company of Remus and Harry. During the battle of Knockturn Alley, you continued your fight against your other self; even Dementor exposure did not twist your motivation. After Grindelwald claimed my power, you chose to oppose him instead of trying to claim power as his supporter. Whether you have realised it or not, you have become a better person."

"You care about such things?" I asked. "Are you telling me you're not such an end of the world as Rookwood hoped?"

"I am called Death," the dark god said with some exasperation. "It is a universal name, anyway. Some people call me Osiris, some Thanatos, some Azrael, some Tuoni… there are more names, most of them unheard of by you. The point is, I am the overseer of dead souls. I have no interest in getting more people to sleep in my halls. Killing all life is the last thing I want! How could I entertain myself by coming to this world every once in a while if there was nothing happening here? I was not even angry at Nicolas Flamel for evading me for so long. His unnaturally long life was not a problem to me."

"Well, that's a relief to hear," I said. "For a moment I was afraid that you had come to get me. I have just learned to enjoy living, you know."

"I have seen too many people who have wasted their lives," Death said. "In pointless worries or just apathy. Good thing you are no longer one of them. Tell me, what do you think you would see in the Mirror of Erised if you looked into it?"

I looked at Hogwarts again, deep in my thought.

"Many abstract things come to my mind," I said. "What would they look like? But I know how things should be for me to be perfectly happy with my life. I would have to be a person with no fear of death, with no desire for power over others, with no apathy ever hounding me – someone who is able to find purpose in life by helping others. In a word: Hufflepuff."

Death smiled.

"But I am not like that," I said. "Is that bad? Hufflepuffs may be great friends who bring joy to people around them, but we Slytherins have ambition. Wouldn't it be better to achieve great things and do smaller or at least less personal good things for humanity?"

"You have learned much from Ginny," Death said. "Slytherins often have great power to do bad things, but also the greatest potential to do good things, if they choose so. This I know, Tom Riddle: if you continue on this path, you will not need to fear death as much as you once did. Remember that it is our choices that determine who we are. You have found the power within yourself to be what you want to be. You can be a Hufflepuff if that is what you consider right for you."

Without another word, Death vanished. I looked around for a moment, then chuckled.

"You fool," I whispered.

I took a certain item from my pocket. I had found it from the Headmaster's office after Grindelwald had been defeated: a stone that looked like petrified blood. Finding it had been only a slight surprise; obviously Grindelwald had not truly returned it to Nicolas Flamel.

"If you're not eager to have me on my 'next great adventure,' you probably don't mind it if I use this for the rest of eternity?"

There was no reply, and I headed for the entrance of Hogwarts.

Having learned to live did not change who I was or what I wanted; it just made it much more enjoyable. My quest for dominance was only at its beginning, and there was no one left to offer me too much of a challenge. Power hated vacuum, and someone was going to fill the vacuum left by Grindelwald. It was my responsibility to ensure that the future ruler of the world would not be worse than I was.

I would not rule the world just to escape apathy or to feel the enjoyment of having other people to boss around. I would remember the virtues that had to accompany great ambition in order to keep it in check. That was the way of Salazar Slytherin.

The story was finished on the 9th of July, 2021, exactly two years after Chapter 1 was posted.

A big collective thanks to everyone who has read the story in full, especially to those who have been of encouragement to me along the way! It is a great thing to know that there are people out there who enjoy reading what I have written.

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Overall: This story is based on the Harry Potter canon of the strictest sense: I only accept the books as canon; not the films, not Pottermore/WizardingWorld, not any video games, nothing J. K. Rowling has stated in interviews, certainly not the Cursed Child and absolutely not any of Rowling's attempts to make her world seem more "progressive." However, some minor details that are not mentioned in the books (such as the first names of many side characters) I have taken from the Harry Potter Wiki. In all other cases where I think I have a better idea of how things should be than Rowling has, I have used my artistic liberties.

Chapter 3, Reflection: I took the first names of Tom's school time "friends" from Birds of a Feather by babylonsheep: Theodore Nott, Edmond Lestrange, Sebastian Rosier, Matthias Mulciber and Quentin Travers. (However, in this story Mulciber was in Tom's year and Travers was not.) Since it is a very high-quality fan fiction story, I decided to pay a small homage to it by borrowing details from it.

Chapter 5, Arrangements: Tom Riddle's name in the Finnish translation is Tom Valedro. Since I read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Finnish the first time, Valedro is the name I have always associated with young Voldemort. As the name does not mean anything to the English Harry Potter universe, Tom has no reason not to use it. Only much later did I realise that the letters of 'Tom Valedro' can be rearranged as 'a Voldemort,' obviously an intentional decision of the translator.

Chapter 6, Avenues to Power: When writing the beginning of the chapter I noticed an inconsistency in the Harry Potter canon. When Dobby warns Harry about the Chamber of Secrets being about to be opened, he says it is not about He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, but tries to give a hint of something he is not allowed to say. That is, of course, that it is about the same person when he was still allowed to be named. That implies Dobby knew that Lucius's plot involved a young Voldemort. Dobby's information came from Lucius and that means he could not know more than Lucius did. However, in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince Dumbledore tells Harry that Lucius did not know the diary was a Horcrux. If that is true, how could Dobby know that Lucius's plot involved a young Voldemort?

Chapter 6, Avenues to Power: Michael Verres the Oxford professor of biochemistry is a reference to Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky where he is the foster father of Harry. It is the best fan fiction story I have read. This story would not exist if I had not read it and learned to write rational stories where the characters' actions make sense.

Chapter 8, Fleeing the Apathy: The idea of Dumbledore symbolising the strategic situation of Britain with a chess board is from Harry Potter and the Butterfly Effect by Brennus.

Chapter 9, A Black Affair: The clichéd lines of an Evil Overlord that Tom manages not to say are the Emperor's lines (slightly modified) from Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. (Check YvdcmHZTzlU and U1MnMA0TzGI on YouTube.)

Chapter 11, Homecoming: I did not bother to come up with own names or back stories for those former Hogwarts students Tom compares their grandchildren to. Sidonie Hipworth is from Birds of a Feather and Ruben Macnair from The Riddle Twins (story unfortunately deleted) by coconut oil shots.

Chapter 12, Setting the Stage: Nearly Headless Nick looking similar to an enchanter of the Middle Ages called Tim by some is about the actor John Cleese who plays Nick in the Harry Potter films. In Monty Python and the Holy Grail he plays the enchanter who introduces himself, "There are some who call me… Tim." (Check aZJZK6rzjns on YouTube.)

Chapter 12, Setting the Stage: What Tom tells Harry about the history of the Full Body-Bind Curse is from Seventh Horcrux by Emerald Ashes. The fact that the Killing Curse can be fuelled by either hate or apathy (indifference) is from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Chapter 14, Personal Matters: Little Hangleton being located in Yorkshire is from Birds of a Feather. (Of course, a location in Britain two hundred miles from Little Whinging cannot mean that many places.)

Chapter 16, Dominance Contest: The first Quidditch match in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is Gryffindor versus Hufflepuff. However, it was supposed to be Gryffindor versus Slytherin, but Malfoy had the game re-scheduled because of his supposedly injured arm. In this story Tom convinced Malfoy to manipulate Harry, resulting in the Quidditch matches between Houses being played as originally scheduled.

Chapter 18, The First Noel: In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Ron is the only Weasley to spend the Christmas at Hogwarts, but that does not make any sense. How plausible is it that he told his parents that he wanted to spend Christmas at Hogwarts so that Harry would not be alone, and then Mr and Mrs Weasley did not invite Harry to The Burrow for Christmas? I think Rowling just wanted there to be thirteen people at the table when Trelawney arrived, and common sense needed to give way for a minor plot device.

Chapter 18, The First Noel: I got the idea of Tom playing The First Noel as a part of a violin duet from a music video by Taryn Harbridge. (Check M1LMTMrEtIo on YouTube.) She has been a remarkable angel of inspiration to me, helping me see purpose in life. It may not be a coincidence that I found the inspiration to write this story (or to do anything at all) shortly after I had begun to listen to her music videos, so if you enjoyed this story, extend your thanks to her. Tom's struggle with apathy mirrors my own experiences, and like me, he needed a spark from a happier soul to learn to live himself. Taryn, if you ever happen to read this: thank you!

Chapter 19, Vision and Revelation: I did consider making Tom analyse the name Voldemort ('Flight of Death' in French) when he thought about the title of Death Eaters and the message engraved on the Potters' headstone. However, I decided that Tom had not had anything more than a neat name in his mind when he had fashioned the name Voldemort. It is unlikely he knew any French at all. In-universe it was just a coincidence that the letters of his name can be rearranged into 'I am Lord Voldemort.' Harry Potter books implicitly back this, because no one ever says that Voldemort's name itself is a sign of his obsession with death. This is one of those not very plausible oddities that occur when the in-universe explanation (from 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' to 'I am Lord Voldemort') is the real life explanation (from 'I am Lord Voldemort' to 'Tom Marvolo Riddle') in reverse.

Chapter 20, Dead Man Talking: Some readers have criticised my "thin justifications" and "embarrassingly dumb stupid excuses" for Tom not reading Peter Pettigrew's mind, one even expressing his massive disappointment with numerous unprintable words and a declaration of hate towards idiots like me. I admit that letting Pettigrew flee without anyone knowing his true allegiance is not one of the best parts of this story, but it needed to happen for the story to continue. But there is a better reason that makes sense in-story.

Tom had no reason whatsoever to suspect that Pettigrew had any other secret than his survival, because it had nothing to do with Pettigrew being the Death Eater who betrayed the Potters. Since Tom did not know or even suspect that Pettigrew had a dark secret, why would using Legilimency on him be such an obvious thing to do? Pettigrew explained his survival after being threatened, and his explanation did not contradict any of Tom's knowledge of what supposedly happened those days. Even a genius can make wrong conclusions and bad decisions if he has limited or incorrect information. Besides, Tom was never that interested in how and why the Potters were betrayed, because it was not personal to him. It mattered to him only as far as he could use it to manipulate Harry.

Many people want Pettigrew getting caught, and it happens in many stories, but this is not a story where the good guys get justice just because they deserve it. People believing in Pettigrew rather than Sirius is what would happen in real life. In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban it took a while for Harry, Ron and Hermione to believe Sirius even though they heard his side of the story as well. Tom only heard Pettigrew's.

Chapter 23, Departure: Time-Turners are a nightmare to everyone who tries to write rational fiction. Luckily, little is told about them in the Harry Potter books, and so I decided that they were a very recent discovery in 1993 and that Hermione actually had a prototype, the only, the first and the last one in use outside the Department of Mysteries.

Chapter 25, Another Black Affair: The password for draining the potion from the basin is from Seventh Horcrux.

Chapter 25, Another Black Affair: I noticed there is something strange in the timeline of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. Dumbledore is supposed to have studied Voldemort's past for years and gathered the memories he shows Harry long before the events of the book. When Dumbledore is away from Hogwarts, he is searching the Horcruxes, not new memories anymore. But here is a strange thing: when he finds the ring, he is so surprised and excited about finding the Resurrection Stone that he throws caution to the wind and puts the ring on his finger without realising there might be a curse in it. However, if he had seen Bob Ogden's memory, he would have recognised the Stone then, and thus finding it would not have been a surprise. The ring is also seen in Morfin's memory, but not in such a notable part.

Chapter 26, Socialite: The Notts living in Broxtowe Abbey in Nottinghamshire is from Birds of a Feather. Tom shrinking Edmond Lestrange's left shoes is from it as well.

Chapter 27, The Watchful Eye: Moody's Mad Eye being an ancient relic called the Eye of Vance is from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It is far too advantageous to be a mass-manufacturable item. Invisibility cloaks and the Disillusionment Charm would be useless if all sensible wizards had a Mad Eye in their pocket.

Chapter 27, The Watchful Eye: Speaking of Moody, Rowling certainly did not think his life story through. He most probably became a legend when he filled half of Azkaban during the Voldemort's First War, but as we see from Dumbledore's memories of the trials that took place after the war, Moody acquired his magic eye after all these legendary achievements of his. What could Moody possibly have done during peacetime that eclipsed his wartime deeds so greatly that his earlier fame as just "Alastor Moody," the war hero who filled half of Azkaban, was replaced with a new fame as "Mad-Eye Moody?" (Maybe I am just asking too logical questions.)

Chapter 28, Phantom Offensive: One of the unrealistic things in the Harry Potter books is that certain themes of the previous books do not continue to the later ones. The most glaring example of this is everyone's reaction to Harry's name coming out of the Goblet of Fire. Apart from Harry and a few others, everyone thinks Sirius escaped from Azkaban in order to kill Harry. Everyone knows Sirius managed to enter Hogwarts three times within the last year. Still, no one even suggests that Harry being forced to compete in the Triwizard Tournament could be Sirius's next attempt to have Harry killed. The previous year the Ministry went to considerable lengths to keep Harry safe, but suddenly, in the next book, the crisis has been forgotten. Also, why do Harry and the others not realise that Peter Pettigrew might have had something to do with the Triwizard thing? Why did everyone disregard fake Moody's theory about it being an assassination attempt even though it is totally obvious?

Another example of this is Lupin's sudden absence. Certainly Harry should have asked him for help in preparing for the Triwizard Tournament. Lupin was in a much better position to help than Sirius, and besides, Harry should have bonded more with Lupin than with Sirius. They spent months together, and Lupin taught Harry the Patronus. What was it about Sirius that made Harry prefer him over Lupin after one evening together?

Chapter 30, Spectacle for the Shallow: In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire it is never told or even suggested that there are spectators other than the Hogwarts students watching the Triwizard tasks. However, it is supposed to be an important spectacle; Ludo Bagman seemed to consider it of equal importance as the Quidditch World Cup and Rita Skeeter wrote about it in the Daily Prophet. I decided that there were hundreds of spectators from around the world, but Harry just never paid them any attention because he was so nervous.

Chapter 30, Spectacle for the Shallow: I have never read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire in English, and that is why I have never envisioned the arena where the first task takes place as an actual arena like it is shown in the film. (I am not fond of the films and have not even watched them in full past the third one, just some clips.) The Finnish translator's choice for the word "arena" is "aitaus," which literally means "area surrounded by fences." And so my mental image of the first task is just a wide opening in the forest, a large empty field surrounded by the said fences, the dragon nesting in the middle and the stands on the right hand's side. There is plenty of room for Tom's illusion army to surround the dragon.

On a similar subject, the words for "courtyard" and "grounds" in the Finnish translation are "piha" and "pihamaa," respectively, and these words essentially mean the same thing: an outdoor area that belongs to a building. When reading the Harry Potter books in Finnish as a child, I never noticed there was any difference between them. As a result, in my mental image of Hogwarts the courtyard does not exist. In this story it is not even mentioned, because I forgot to deliberately add this one known location at Hogwarts to complete the picture most people have about the castle.

Chapter 30, Spectacle for the Shallow: Tom's pompous words to the Hungarian Horntail are King Arthur's lines (slightly modified) from the final scene of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Check WJzM1kaTcsY on YouTube.)

Chapter 31, Not a Silent Night: Edmond Dantés, the Dark wizard whom Madame Maxime mentions, is from Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas Senior, my favourite novel. Apparently, this alternate version of the Harry Potter universe is the same where that novel takes place. Mr Dumas neglected to mention the fact that many of the characters were actually wizards, probably because fantasy was not a fashionable genre in his time…

Chapter 31, Not a Silent Night: I tried to be very canon-compliant when writing this story, but one thing I simply could not stomach was the Weird Sisters, a pop music band. It is not just the fact that the isolated wizarding world should not have such cultural influences from the Muggle world, it is also that I strongly dislike pop music, as you can tell from the first paragraph of Chapter 16. That is why I replaced the Weird Sisters with a dignified chamber orchestra.

Chapter 33, The Fallen Brother: Fernand Mondego the wannabe Dark Lord is also from Count of Monte Cristo. It is up to you to decide whether or not he stealing an immensely powerful wand from Ali Pasha is one unknown episode in the story of the Elder Wand. I would have liked it if every time the History of Magic class is interrupted in the Harry Potter books Binns had been lecturing about a wizard taking the wand from another by force.

Chapter 33, The Fallen Brother: The way Harry is abducted at the end of the Triwizard Tournament is the dumbest part of the canon Harry Potter plot. It is never mentioned that Portkeys do not work at Hogwarts the way Apparition does not work, in fact there never seems to be any restrictions on them. So, why did Crouch Junior not abduct Harry during the first day of school? Or when they met in Hogsmeade before the first task? I had to make changes to how things happen to fix these issues, and in my story there is an Anti-Portkey Ward around Hogwarts. Canon-compliancy is not as important as things making sense.

Chapter 33, The Fallen Brother: Voldemort's return is my own least favourite part of this story, because in this case I had to force the story to follow the Stations of the Canon. In "divergence" type of fan fiction stories changes happen because characters make different decisions than they make in canon. In this case there were no good reasons why Harry goes to the graveyard when as rational a character as Tom is advising him, why Tom does not stop Voldemort from being reincarnated when he has the opportunity and how Harry and Tom eventually return to Hogwarts with them both and Voldemort all alive. But these things just had to happen or the story would have gone to a dead end. As a result Chapter 33 is kind of acrobatics on my part when I tried to simultaneously take the story to the direction it needed to go and have things make sense even a little. Even though I think I did it quite well, the result is still not good.

Chapter 35, Conflicting Stories: The ending ceremony of the Triwizard Tournament was cancelled in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire because of Cedric Diggory's death. In this story no one died, and so the ceremony is not cancelled, and Dumbledore announces Voldemort's return a week earlier than in canon.

Chapter 36, The Parting Glass: Long after posting this chapter I realised that the end-of-term feast apparently takes place in the evening before the departure from Hogwarts, and I even wrote it so in Chapter 23. It makes sense to give the winners of the House Cup championship some time to celebrate their victory. However, I decided not to change this small oversight afterwards, because it would have totally messed up Tom's timetable and the overall atmosphere of this chapter. Perhaps the house-elves in the kitchen were a little overworked from having arranged the ending ceremony, and they had been given half a day more time for the arrangements of the end-of-term feast…

Chapter 37, Hunting Father Christmas: Urho Kekkonen was the President of Finland from 1956 to 1981 and he died in 1986, but if he had been a wizard, then obviously he would have become the President ten years earlier and still ruled in 1995.

Chapter 37, Hunting Father Christmas: The incantation of Fiendfyre (Az-reth) is from Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality.

Chapter 38, The Epicentre of History: Despite the importance of this chapter, I decided to write it only about three weeks before posting it. That was because the only things about it that I had planned in advance would have made Chapter 37 too long.

Chapter 40, The Reactive Strategy: I had to add some limitations to the Fidelius Charm that are not mentioned in the Harry Potter canon, because the canon is so problematic. Why did the Order of the Phoenix not have a policy that every single member had to be protected by the Fidelius with Dumbledore as the Secret Keeper? How did Dumbledore know where to send Hagrid fetch the baby Harry from despite not having been told the secret by Pettigrew? (If he had been told, he would have known Sirius was not the traitor.) How could Ron tell Dobby to take the prisoners of Malfoy Manor to Shell Cottage when he was not the Secret Keeper? How could Bill tell that the rest of the Weasley family was living with Aunt Muriel when Arthur was the Secret Keeper of Muriel's? Why did Voldemort not hide his Horcruxes in places protected by the Fidelius with himself as the Secret Keeper?

Chapter 40, The Reactive Strategy: The former Defence Against the Dark Arts teachers Blake, Summers and Barney are mentioned in Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality. It is not told what it was for which Professor Barney was fired, but apparently he was more evil than Voldemort.

Chapter 43, Diplomacy: The quote of the Dark Lord about whom Tom has read is the Green Goblin's line (slightly modified) from Spider-Man (the 2002 film). (Check MXLPEhEO5mM on YouTube.)

Chapter 43, Diplomacy: It is not told in the Harry Potter books when Abraxas Malfoy died, just that he had died before September of 1996. However, considering how Voldemort gave his diary to Lucius instead of Abraxas shortly before his disappearance in 1981, I think it is likely that Abraxas was dead already then. Based on the meagre amount of information given in the books, there is no reason why Voldemort would have been closer to Lucius than to Abraxas.

Chapter 46, The Countdown: The part about magic having no power over bureaucratic paperwork is a quote from Bad Education by magicspacehole. It is a really entertaining Tom Riddle centric story, especially Tom's habit of having an extremely negative attitude towards everything. From a story-telling perspective, I think one of the shortcomings of my own Tom is his ability to endure all annoyances so stoically.

Chapter 47: Changing Allegiances: Eliezer Yudkowsky, author of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality, has written a book titled Rationality: From AI to Zombies. (AI stands for Artificial Intelligence.) Since in this story he is an Unspeakable, the book is titled Advanced Necromancy: From Zombies to Artificial Intelligence.

Chapter 48, The Initiative: In the Harry Potter books it is never told where Crouch Manor is located. However, considering it took just a week for the weakened Barty Crouch senior to wander from there to Hogwarts, it most likely is somewhere in Scotland.

Chapter 49, Operation Pesticide: Some of Death's lines of dialogue in Tom's vision are the same that Tom had written for the illusion monster of the second Triwizard task in Chapter 32. The idea is that the Dementor reused some fitting lines already in Tom's mind when creating a vision with a similar theme as Tom's performance.

Chapter 51, Reunion of Brothers: Some of the lines of dialogue between Tom and Voldemort are quotes from Wizards by Ralph Bakshi. (Check 4cZqRzHnI8s on YouTube. Like it says in the description: how the Harry Potter series SHOULD have ended.) Someone suggested it to be the ending of Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality back in 2015, and I immediately fell in love with the idea. In fact, for a very long time it was my plan to make Tom kill Voldemort with a handgun, but then I decided to use a magical solution instead. The Gamma Radiation Charm was originally supposed to be used at the battle of the Department of Mysteries to kill one of the Lestrange brothers, but then I asked myself, why would Tom use his most secret weapon against someone lesser than Voldemort?

Chapter 54, Through the Veil: The names of Maximilien Herbault, the former Supreme Mugwump, are from Count of Monte Cristo. It is my go-to book when I need some French names that will be used only once.

Chapter 54, Through the Veil: I am not sure if it was a good decision to give a long list of wizarding countries just before the climax, but there was no other place for this massive piece of worldbuilding. In my headcanon, there are only about a million wizards globally, and therefore not every real world nation has a sizeable wizarding community.

Listed among the countries are all that are mentioned in the Harry Potter books: Britain (which includes Ireland, because Fudge was its political representative at the Quidditch World Cup), France (where Beauxbatons is), Poland, Turkey, Luxemburg, Transylvania, Uganda (all five mentioned in a Quidditch context), Romania (where Charlie Weasley worked), Bulgaria (Viktor Krum's homeland), Brazil (where Bill Weasley's pen pal lived), Egypt (where Bill worked), Liechtenstein (mentioned in Harry's History of Magic OWL), Peru (producer of the Instant Darkness Powder) and Assyria (where Neville's Mimbulus mimbledonia came from). Some countries (such as Albania and Sweden) I did not include, because they are mentioned as geographical locations rather than wizarding countries.

This list contradicts the wider Harry Potter canon, the one Rowling expanded through other media than the seven books. Most importantly, the Magical Congress of the United States of America, the setting of the first Fantastic Beasts film, does not exist. My reason for this is that it does not make any sense why such a wizarding country would exist considering the history of the real world and the realities of the wizarding world.

There is no reason why the magical equivalents of the British colonies would have wanted independence, because the Ministry of Magic does not seem to have any other powers over its citizens than enforcing the law, education etc. It is of course possible that the American wizards never were under the jurisdiction of the British Ministry of Magic, but in that case why would they have formed any formal states at all, let alone a union like the Muggle states? Anarchism should work in a magical community quite well, because everyone is capable of taking care of themselves.

On this subject, I also consider the state of the wizarding USA as it is shown in the films to be implausible. It seems to be quite a large community, not smaller than wizarding Britain, it consists of wizards of European and African heritage and it does not allow marriages between wizards and Muggles. None of this makes sense.

The European population of the USA was formed of immigrants who sought new land and opportunities in life. Wizards are capable of living comfortably with very little, so there is no reason why European wizards would have moved to America in proportional numbers. Certainly some adventurous individuals did move, but there should have been very few of them. The African population, on the other hand, was formed of slaves whose ancestors were forcibly taken from Western Africa. There the magical population certainly was capable of avoiding the slave hunters, and thus no African wizards should have been taken across the ocean. Therefore, those African wizards who were born in America were Muggle-born. Since the wizarding USA does not allow marriages between wizards and Muggles, it most probably was not keen on integrating any African Muggle-borns into their society.

In conclusion, the wizarding Anglo-America should be very tiny, very white, not united and not states. And since a tiny population should not afford to be picky, it should not oppose the mixing of magical and Muggle blood, and there should not be any central government restricting people from doing so if they wanted to.

Chapter 55, Atlantis Unleashed: When I started writing this story on a whim (the date was the 30th of November, 2018), I had no idea of the plot further than to Chapter 5. However, even then I had decided that the Chamber of Secrets should have some other purpose than to rid Hogwarts of Muggle-borns, because the canon purpose is just so stupid. Why would it be called "the Chamber of Secrets" if there was not a single secret in there? But the idea that the Chamber was in fact one of the only remnants of Atlantis I came up with in February of 2020, after publishing Chapter 22. If you pay close attention, you may notice how the name Atlantis pops up more frequently after that, because I had to do much foreshadowing.