.
The Darkness in the Former Life
He waved his wand and everything stopped again. Rounding the workbench he knelt in front of her. "Molly has been up to her usual tricks," but there was a certain exasperated fondness in his voice. "Tell me everything she said."
She fidgeted, worried about crossing a line from which there was no recovery.
"Elaine," he wrapped her up in his arms and buried his face in her hair. "Please."
"She mentioned Harry loosing someone named Albus, and a battle—and you and Harry's mum," the last came out as a whisper.
She felt his hands tighten on her sea-green sweater. "It's a long story."
"I'm listening."
He took a deep breath, "I grew up poor—perhaps you can guess. Potter's mother, Lily Evans lived on the other side of the tracks—decidedly middle class. We were childhood friends and I thought, at one time, we could be more. Fast forward —we went to the same school for Witches and Wizards but we're sorted into different dorms. I fell in with the wrong sort. I wanted power and respect—the things I had hungered for and not received in my short, miserable life. My decisions ended up costing Lily's life, and that of her husband, leaving an infant Harry as the only survivor. What follows after that is a very long and depressing eighteen years where I spent the majority of my time being a rubbish teacher and the last seven dividing my time between being a bastard and trying to keep Mr. Potter alive."
Elaine shifted to look up at his serious face. "And the battle?"
"The perfect culmination of nearly four decades of misery."
She shrugged helplessly. "But what was the war?"
He shifted away and struggled awkwardly to his feet. "A Dark Lord who despised the non-magical race and sought their eradication—rather like our own English Adolf Hitler."
"A Dark Lord you supported at one time?" She said slowly, the pieces falling together.
He nodded and busied himself at the counter straightening the instruments and ingredients. "I realized my error almost immediately." There was another long pause before he turned back to her. "At the end I finally reached my quota of usefulness. The Dark Lord had me killed."
"But—"
He smirked slightly, "Well, attempted to have me killed. Obviously he failed—but at a price." He touched his throat and then his hip.
She stood slowly and closed the distance between them, reaching for him. He embraced her willingly. "There are many details I've left out and other twists and turns in my history that would lengthen my story."
"I think I have enough to process at the moment," she murmured, "You will have plenty of time in the future to clarify and explain."
"Things will stay—the same?" He asked tentatively, curling around her as she relaxed into him.
She tipped her head back to smile up at him, "Well, I am hoping that we will make progress, but no, my feelings haven't changed."
Seagreen, #48