Reviewers:

Cottontail, avhn, and Natalie, I am glad that you enjoyed the previous chapter. I hope that I can keep your interest. Thank you for your kind regards.

'Mes, Thank you for the kind review. I have checked out the site you recommended, and it seems perfect! Thank you very much.

MarsIsBrightTonight, Thank you and I hope to answer your questions subtly through the course of this story. However, if I fail to do that, I'll just plainly reveal everything to clear up the confusion.

Sybil, I'm sorry for my lack of originality, but I am relieved that you liked what you read, nonetheless. I hope that this story continues to find favor with you.

Oedipean Revolution

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Drink my soul away

I won't cry with you

Eat my beating heart

I can't mourn now

Digest my bare conscience

I forgot what I love

Swallow my infant sanity

I dreamed it away

~Consumption, Akiko Pirscher

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It is darkness. Then there's a hair line crack of light and shadows. I freeze. My little heart tries to burst from my chest. The light widens and a tall shadow enters. A mad voice snakes its way into the damp crevices of my thoughts.

"Lily/James. Sorry, so sorry. Lovely mine, so sorry. Didn't mean…Didn't want…Only wanted…."

I grip Rabbit to my chest. I shake. Cloth rustles and footsteps come. I'm a quaking ball curled in smooth sheets. The bed shakes and dips and a large body is there. I bite Rabbit's ear and hope this isn't the Scary Man.

"My lovely." I feel light-headed with relief. It's Daddy!

Large, warm, comforting hands pull the sheets away. Then they touch me. I feel that strange oddness that I can't help but like. Those large hands move over me. I make little happy noises.

"Such a precious thing you are, lovely."

"Yes, daddy."

And now Daddy's mouth is on mine and it seems so big. Sometimes I imagine that he could swallow me whole. But he doesn't. I think it might be fun to be swallowed.

There! His tongue is in my mouth. It is thick and big and moist. I think it's going to suffocate me, crawl down my throat and kill me. But it doesn't.

Daddy's warm hands and tongue and body and games frighten me, but they also make me feel safe. He protects me. Sometimes it hurts, but then the oddness comes and it doesn't really hurt.

The buttons on my pajama top are undone. I shiver when the cold air hits me. Daddy runs his hands across my chest. I can't stop my body jerking when he pinches those strange and touchable bits of flesh. It feels like a static shock, but stronger and more…odd.

He is talking, whispering these little phrases that make me want to cry happily. He loves me. And I love him more than anything I know.

And he's touching me in that place that is only his. The Scary Man touched me there, but he wasn't supposed to. Only Daddy is allowed to touch me there. Not me or anyone else, only him. And it's nice and odd when Daddy does, and my body is out of my control and that frightens me, but he's whispering and I know I'm safe.

"I could eat you up, lovely." This scares me a bit. He wants to eat me? The things I eat are dead things. Does that mean he wants to…to…to kill me? Never! Daddy would never do that; he loves me, I know this.

"Daddy!" Everything is so tight. It's so hard to breathe. I feel sick like when I had a stomach flu, but it's also nice feeling, odd feeling. His large hand is moving very fast upon…it. I don't really understand what it is, but when he touches it, I feel odd and tight and can't breathe right. I only touch it to pee-pee—which I am allowed to do—and I never make it feel this way. My body jerks about and I'm making choking noises and Daddy is smiling so proudly down at me. I try to smile back.

I'm a piece of string being pulled too tight. And then I snap and it's a relief and pain and I feel that strange wetness on my thighs. I blink up at Daddy. I feel all dizzy and really happy and the odd feeling is only a sort of a hiding dream.

But Daddy isn't done yet. He tells me so in a deep, rumbling voice. He's going to do that other thing his does. This is the other game his plays with me; one just between me and him. He never does it in front of my Uncles. And this is the game that hurts me a little, that scares me.

I'm on my stomach and his fingers are at that little place. They touch me lightly and he tells me to relax. It's so hard, though! I don't like this as much as the other game. But I try, I really do, and a finger burns me. I can feel it and another, all slick and greasy. I squirm and Daddy laughs.

Daddy then touches something inside that brings back that odd, nice feeling. I gasp. He touches it again and again, and I gasp again and again. And I squirm even more. And he's laughing.

"You're such an eager slut, lovely," he tells me lovingly and moves the frightening, wonderful fingers. I'm panting roughly and I feel so odd and good and everything is so many strange sparks of that wonderful odd feeling.

And then Daddy hurts me. He doesn't mean to, I'm sure. And I squeal as I feel his it in me. His is much bigger than my own, so maybe that's why it hurts me. I can't help but think that maybe it isn't supposed to do what he does with it.

But he's moving now. And I can almost feel it in my throat and that thought is scary. I whimper and wriggle. It's like I'm being torn in two. I can't draw breath fast enough to scream. It's all fiery burning and nice oddness, and I feel like a tight bit of string again.

His large hands grip my hips and that hurts and I know he's going to leave purple marks, but everything is so tight and all I want is that relief when the oddness becomes too much. I want to snap again.

I squirm against him and claw at the sheets. And Daddy continues to push into me and murmur loving words. I can't breathe. I can't scream. The oddness is suffocating me. It's killing me. I want to cry out to Daddy, to tell him I'm dying, but I can't speak. And I'm so scared. I don't like this game!

Daddy! Daddy!

And then I snap. Sweet relief washes over me. The nice-odd feeling weighs me down and pushes through me. I'm all wet again. Daddy makes strange noises. He's going to snap, too, soon.

And he does. His warm wetness spurts inside me. Daddy kisses my head and says that I'm a good boy. I feel really happy, and sleepy. I yawn and he laughs. Then he takes it out of me and I feel strange and empty and I'm not sure if I like that or not.

Daddy whispers strange words and all the wetness is gone. He kisses me again, on the lips, and tucks me back beneath the covers.

"Good night, lovely."

And he's gone. And I'm in darkness. The hall light is only a faint line of brightness at the bottom of the door.

*          *          *

Am I unique? I look at what I have accomplished, what I am, and what the future holds, and find my situation looking rather bleak.

I find myself merely the successor of other Dark Lords and Ladies. I am the precursor of other Dark Lords and Ladies. We are so many pearls along a singular string, one right after the other. The difference between each of us is negligible. Those fighting on the side 'light' have certainly placed us in the same category. Apparently, there is a clear dichotomy, though I have yet to see it.

The most disturbing trend among these so-called Dark magic users seems to be their inevitable end at the hands of some self-righteous 'hero'. This is not a pattern I care to repeat under any circumstances. I have done all I know how to safeguard against this undesirable outcome, yet I have the most unnerving suspicion that I have overlooked something almost too obvious. Undoubtedly, if I am to come to a sticky end, this 'overlooked something' will be the cause.

I am a character that is easily replaced. If not I, not doubt another wizard or witch would have risen to fulfill the role as Evil. It seems as if this world exists through the conflict of its inhabitants. Each individual creature, whether plant or animal, forever battles for the right to live. Darwin was on to something with his theory of 'survival of the fittest.' Without this discord all life would lack meaning—if it has any to begin with.  Then I am merely filling a niche, as it were, and Dumbledore fills another opposite from me. Like nature, humanity abhors an empty niche and does all in its powers, unknowingly, to fill the lack.

Society groomed me for the role I am ensconced in. Society would have created another Dark Lord/Lady. I am interchangeable…expendable.

No.

That is the line of thinking that sentimental fools can indulge in. I have done too much to simply be another Dark Lord.

I am the Dark Lord.

*          *          *

Would the universe exist without intelligent creatures alive to acknowledge its existence?

A man without living friends or relatives is killed and his body is never found. No one knows he has even died. Rationally we can say that he exists, but if there is no one who knows that he does—or did since he is dead in this hypothesis—then he cannot exist, can he? I am acknowledged by others, therefore, I exist.

I will live on in infamy.

Through history I will become immortal.

But history is in the past. The past is dead. I do not plan on dying anytime soon. I do not care for historical immortality. I will have eternity now.

*          *          *

The pretty boy sits quiescently in my lap and hugs that ridiculous stuffed rabbit. I read to him fables from an old book encased in cracking leather. A kittenish yawn rides softly above the mesmerizing crackle of aromatic logs in the fireplace. Harry's too-green eyes scrunch up and his pink lips part to reveal the dainty tongue and perfect rows of white teeth.  Relaxed and drowsy, he is about to receive a bit of unwanted news.

"Lovely." He blinks languidly and attempts to focus his attention on me. "I'm going to have to leave you for a couple days, maybe a week." He is immediately fully awake. Eyes scan my face with puerile trepidation.

"But, daddy, you said you weren't gonna leave me!"

"Going to," I correct him absently. I find his ingenuous distress rather endearing. "And it's only for a little while. I've arranged for one of your uncles to watch over you."

"Who?" The child may complain and whine and plead about my absences, but only for a short while.

"Uncle Peter." His moue of displeased curiosity vanishes with blinding celerity. His skin takes on a strange, grayish hue and the entirety of his small body trembles violently. He is utterly and inexplicably terrified. Wild eyes pierce mine even as tiny hands grip my arms with surprising strength.

"Not him, daddy. He's bad!" I quirk an eyebrow. The boy has never expressed such blatant and overwhelming fear towards any of my followers before. My curiosity is piqued.

"Why not, lovely?" A harsh blush drowns the pallor of his cheeks. Green eyes are downcast. He looks away in shame. I grip his delicate chin between thumb and forefinger and force him to look me in the eye.

"Why not?" I repeat lowly. Crystal tears clump his sooty lashes.

"He did things…to me." A deep, possessive rage bursts violently in my stomach. My little rat has been very disobedient, apparently.

"What 'things'?" The boy shakes his head as much as he is able in my unrelenting grip. "I promise I won't punish you, lovely, but I need to know."

"He touched me, daddy. Like you do."

"Did he?" I am rather amazed that my voice comes out with such unruffled calm.

"I…He scares me. He wanted to play your games." I shush him and rock him in my arms until the trembling ceases in his small frame.

I have always suspected that Peter Pettigrew was, to put it crudely, a little off. Honestly, what sort of man betrays two people he loves above all rationality because he illogically believes that he can make them love him back? Of course, I am not adverse to accepting advantages when presented, and his entrance into my fold has proven quite useful upon occasion. Yet, I do not think he has truly exculpated himself for the deaths of the Potters.

It is time for another experiment. It is time to see how deeply madness has rooted in the rat's mind. My lovely boy will not like this. It might, in fact, break him, but I am willing to risk his mind. After all, he is merely another experiment—a wholly delightful experiment to be sure, but still an experiment.

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Natural selection acts only by the preservation and accumulation of small inherited modifications, each profitable to the preserved being.

~Origin of Species, Charles Darwin

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