"Be a man... try... Try to have a little remorse."
I thought I could predict Harry Potter, but he remains an enigma.
"After all I've done?" I'm amused. "You want me to feel remorse for nineteen explicit murders."
Potter shocks me again.
"Anyone can change."
"I ordered countless people to be violated, murdered, tortured, mutilated. I caused an entire generation to grow up and live in fear. My name inspires horror by the atrocities I've committed. And yet you still think I can change?"
"Yes. I do."
I'm actually angry now.
"I killed your parents and ruined your childhood. I effectively killed multiple people you loved and cared for. I sincerely wanted you to die. I attempted to murder YOU! And still you think I can change?"
"I do."
This man is more insane than I was at his age.
"I am EVIL! What more proof do you want?"
In a quiet, infuriating voice, he informs me again, "Anyone can change."
I laugh. It's cracked, just like me.
"If they're sane they can. I haven't been truly sane for fifty-three years."
"Anyone can change."
"Not me. I am the Master of Death. I-"
His head snaps up, and he looks at me with unseeing eyes as he mutters, in a voice that isn't his, "You are not the Master of Death."
As my old friend Karkaroff would say, "Mainata."
This wasn't supposed to happen. He's invoking Death Itself.
I whip out a potion and down it, throwing the bottle aside.
I hardly register the crash as I extract a single, silvery marble from my temple.
I conjure an Imperturbable, Warded Bottle, and place my memories in it.
I can feel both a burning and a coldness in my body.
I point my wand at my head and wait.
I look up at Harry.
His eyes are glowing as he levitates a foot off the ground, pointing at me while intoning gravely, "You will die for your crime. You have desecrated magic by performing profane ritual after profane ritual. I, Master of Death, Harry James Potter, Descendant of Ignotus Peverell, Lord Black and Lord Potter, claim your soul."
At this point, the fire inside me is all but extinguished, and the cold is nearly unbearable.
Across from me, Harry drops to the ground, unconscious.
I look at myself. My skin tone is no longer white, but a deep tan. I have hair again. My musculature is more solid all around, and I have a nose again.
Darkness tinges the edges of my vision. That's not good.
I can feel my mind slipping away. That's very good.
Right before the darkness claims me as its own, with the very last vestiges of control I have left in a mind that's no longer mine, I utter the words.
Avada Kedavra.
Everything goes black.