Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I do not own Harry Potter. Harry Potter and all associated characters and trademarks are the property of J. K. Rowling and Warner Bros. Entertainment.

CHAPTER THREE: THE PROPOSAL

"We monsters are necessary to nature also."
-Marquis de Sade

Lyra was wide awake, thinking on what the red-eyed man had said. There were more magicals, like her. She was where she belonged, even if she was currently a prisoner.

After about half an hour of her ruminations, her door opened once again. A single, masked Death Eater stood, holding a clear vial of purple liquid. He was tall and almost ridiculously muscular. Blond hair was visible beneath his hood.

"What's that?"

He grunted. "Dreamless Sleep Potion."

Hmmm. So magicals can create potions as well. That's very interesting.

The man then tilted her head back and poured the potion down Lyra's throat. He then left, closing the door behind him. Sure enough, after a few minutes, Lyra fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

When she woke up, she believed it was mid-morning, but the smooth steel walls of her cell revealed nothing. As though he had been waiting for her, Lord Slytherin almost immediately entered her cell.

"Perfect timing, isn't it, my dear Lyra?"

"Yes of course, my lord. One might almost think it was planned."

"Surely not!" He then laughed. "Oh, Lyra, how I enjoy our conversations. I've known you for twelve hours, and you already have been far more amusing than most of my Death Eaters."

"I'm truly flattered," Lyra said in a deadpan tone.

They both laughed uncontrollably.

When they had calmed down, Marvolo arranged his face into an emotionless expression. He conjured a simple wooden chair, and sat down facing his captive with his arms folded.

"Now, Lyra, since you very kindly explained yourself thoroughly last night, I am going to return the favour.

"My birth name is Tom Marvolo Riddle. I was born on December 31, 1926. My mother was a woman named Merope Gaunt. She was the daughter of Marvolo Gaunt, the Lord of the Most Ancient House of Gaunt, a house with a reputation for inbreeding and insanity."

"Most Ancient House of Gaunt?"

"Wizards have had nobility for centuries. There are different tiers. At the top are Noble and Most Ancient Houses, then Most Ancient Houses, then Ancient Houses, and then Magical Houses. To establish a House, a family must have at least four generations of wixen and register with the Ministry of Magic. Only Noble and Most Ancient or Most Ancient Houses can have seats on the Wizengamot."

"I see. What are wixen? What's the Ministry of Magic? And what's the Wizengamot?"

"Wixen, singular wix, is a newer, gender-neutral term for a witch or wizard. The Ministry of Magic is the governing body of Magical Britain. The Wizengamot is the legislative and judicial branch of the government of Magical Britain. It is made up of a mixture of Lords and Ladies, elected representatives, and government officials. Rather like Muggle Parliament."

"Muggle?"

"Non-magical individuals. Anyways, my mother had one brother, named Morfin. Her mother died when she was an infant. She was badly abused by both her father and brother. This led to her magic becoming very underdeveloped. My mother eventually became obsessed with a handsome Muggle named Tom Riddle, the son of a wealthy Muggle couple who lived near the Gaunts in the town of Little Hangleton.

"After both Marvolo and Morfin were taken to prison for an attack on Tom Riddle Sr. and their subsequent resistance to their arrest by the Ministry of Magic, my mother seized her chance. She somehow drugged my father with a Love Potion, and they had me. When she stopped dosing my father with the Love Potion, he abandoned her. She was pregnant with me at the time. Whether he knew it or not, I'm not sure. Anyway, when a witch is pregnant, the developing foetus relies on the magical core of the mother to sustain itself. My mother was so weak after giving birth to me that she died right after naming me. Tom for my father, Marvolo for my grandfather, and Riddle, the surname of the man who abandoned her. As a half-blood, her family would never have accepted me, even if they had not been imprisoned at the time."

"Half-blood?"

"Wizards with one magical and one Muggle or Muggle-born parent. Purebloods have two wizarding parents, and Muggle-borns have two Muggle parents"

"I was born at Wool's Orphanage. It's where I lived for the first eleven years of my life. The matron was named Mrs. Cole, and she was a very unpleasant woman. Not nearly as bad as your Mrs. Holmes, but close. The other children were cruel to me. I used my magic to make them stop. Rather like you did, Lyra."

"Good. They deserved it."

"When I was eleven, a man named Albus Dumbledore came to the orphanage. He gave me an invitation to attend a school called Hogwarts. A school of magic."

"That's an incredibly stupid name for a school."

"I agree. I stupidly told him far too much about myself. I now believe Dumbledore put charms on me to make me more… open with myself. When he learned I could speak to snakes, he never trusted me afterwards."

"Why?"

"Parseltongue, the language of snakes, has long been seen as an evil trait by many ignorant and biassed wizards. Anyway, at Hogwarts, I was sorted into Slytherin House."

"Slytherin? And what's a House?"

"Hogwarts has four Houses, each named after the four founders of the school, Godric Gryffindor, Helga Hufflepuff, Rowena Ravenclaw, and Salazar Slytherin. Students are sorted into their Houses by a magical Sorting Hat, which determines which House would fit your personality type best. Gryffindor House is for the brave and noble, Hufflepuff for the hard-working and loyal, Ravenclaw for the intelligent and wise, and Slytherin for the cunning and ambitious."

"Slytherin seems to be by far the best."

"It is, in general. Unfortunately, Salazar Slytherin and his House are often looked down on as "evil, dark wizards in the making" by the prejudiced and bigoted. It is true that most of my Death Eaters came from Slytherin, but Dark Lords have come from every House at Hogwarts, and most of the time they recruited followers that had been in their own House there."

"At Hogwarts, I was a brilliant student. First in all my classes. I was a Prefect and later Head Boy. All the teachers liked me, except for Dumbledore, of course.

"At the age of fifteen, I was able to track down my remaining family. Marvolo had died in Azkaban, the wizarding prison, but Morfin had been released. I found him, knocked him out, took his wand, and killed my father and grandparents. I then took the Gaunt family ring, and implanted a false memory into Morfin's mind of him killing the Riddles. Morfin was arrested and sent to Azkaban again, where he later died.

"When I was sixteen, I finally found Salazar Slytherin's semi-mythical Chamber of Secrets, a hidden chamber said to be found deep within Hogwarts. I explored the library, talked to a portrait of Salazar Slytherin, and met the legendary monster within, a Basilisk."

"What, exactly, is a Basilisk?"

"A type of giant magical serpent. They have extremely potent venom and can kill anyone who looks into their eyes."

"When I opened the Chamber, I accidentally killed a girl, Myrtle Warren. The school was going to close. I would have been able to stay, but Dumbledore persuaded the Headmaster Armando Dippet that it would be better if I returned to the orphanage, so I framed Rubeus Hagrid, a half-giant student at the school, and his pet Acromantula, a kind of giant spider. Hagrid was expelled, but Dumbledore kept him there as gamekeeper."

"Why?"

"Probably to have another person to manipulate. Dumbledore loves to manipulate and control people, and make them serve his own desires. Due to his mother being a giantess, Hagrid has incredible size and strength and his skin is resistant to most spells. He's also quite dim but astonishingly loyal. An excellent pawn for Dumbledore to manipulate. When I went back to the orphanage after that year, I created my first Horcrux."

"What is a Horcrux and why did you create them?"

"A Horcrux is a type of alchemic object created through a ritual devised by the Ancient Egyptian wizards and created by the Greek Dark Wizard Herpo the Foul. It is commonly believed to be an object in which one has encased a piece of their soul. That is incorrect, as the human soul or spirit can not be split. In reality, it's just an object that tethers the life force of a person, what the Egyptians called the ka , to the physical realm, which could theoretically prevent death. I created it because, at the time, London was being bombed by the Nazis. I was not allowed to use magic outside of Hogwarts, and I was afraid I was going to die young, with no one to remember me. My first Horcrux was my old diary.

"After I graduated Hogwarts, I applied for a teaching position at Hogwarts, but Headmaster Dippet rejected me because of my youth, and I went to work at Borgin and Burkes, a store specialising in rare and sometimes illegal artefacts. During my time there, an old woman named Hepzibah Smith took a fancy to me. She was a hoarder of rare artefacts and heirlooms. I also suspected her to be a paedophile, who had an unhealthy obsession with me. I murdered her, framed her servant, and stole two of her trophies. One was Salazar Slytherin's locket, which had originally belonged to my mother. The other was the famous cup of Helga Hufflepuff. The Smiths have always claimed to be descendants of Hufflepuff, but it's a lie. Helga's line died out centuries ago. I don't know how they originally acquired that cup, but I doubt it was in any way legal.

"After killing Smith, I spent years abroad, where I studied with the mages of Siberia, the vampire covens of Transylvania, the shamans of the Brazilian Amazon, the voodoo magicians of the Caribbean, and many other practitioners of obscure Magicks.

"I then claimed my seat on the Wizengamot as Lord Thomas Slytherin. I joined the Dark political faction, or the Traditionalists, and fought for the things I believed in through politics, for years. But Dumbledore and his stooges blocked all my moves."

"Eventually, I gave up on politics, and resumed my travels abroad. During that time, I created four more Horcruxes. They were, in order of creation, the Gaunt family ring, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, and Ravenclaw's diadem, which had been lost for over a millennium. When I was at Hogwarts, I had persuaded the Grey Lady, a ghost and in truth the daughter of Rowena Ravenclaw, to disclose the location of her mother's diadem, which she had stolen. It subsequently became the last of my Horcruxes. I again applied for a teaching position at Hogwarts, but Dumbledore, who had become Headmaster by then, rejected me."

"After Dumbledore refused me, I fully adopted the identity of the Dark Lord Voldemort."

"An anagram?"

"That is correct. 'Tom Marvolo Riddle' can be rearranged into 'I am Lord Voldemort.'"

"Me and my followers, the Death Eaters, waged war on the corrupt Ministry of Magic for eleven years, and we were winning. But in 1980, everything went wrong. One of my best Death Eaters, Severus Snape overheard Dumbledore interviewing a prospective Divination teacher in a seedy pub called the Hog's Head. While the teacher was known to be a fraud, the prophecy was real, and it mentioned that "the one with the power to defeat the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies", specifically "born to parents that have thrice defied him." Unfortunately, Severus was kicked out of the bar before he heard the whole thing.

"There were three children who fit the prophecy. The first was Neville Longbottom, born to Frank and Alice Longbottom on July 30, 1980. The others were a set of twins, Alexander Sirius Potter and Harriet Lily Potter, the children of James and Lily Potter. Both were born on July 31, 1980. I assumed that one of the Potter twins would fit the prophecy, due to them being born later in the month. I wanted to meet the parents and persuade them to declare neutrality in the war. But Dumbledore interfered first. The Longbottoms and the Potters were both part of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's illegal vigilante group dedicated to fighting me and my followers. He sent them both into hiding. The Longbottoms were put in a heavily warded country house, and the Potters were sent to a cottage under the Fidelius Charm."

"Which is…"

"A type of protective charm which makes a specific location invisible. The location is confided in one person, known as the Secret-Keeper."

"In October of 1981, the Secret-Keeper of the Potters, Peter Pettigrew, willingly betrayed their location to me. I then killed him."

"Good. Never leave a traitor alive."

"I went to the Potter's cottage in the wizarding town of Godric's Hollow. I attempted to negotiate with James Potter, but he attacked me, so I knocked him out. Then I went upstairs, where Lily Potter was in front of a pair of identical cribs. She started annoyingly begging me, so I knocked her out as well. I then looked down at you and your brother. He was just an ordinary baby, but you, you were so… powerful. I was wary of your potential, so I decided to eliminate you before you were a threat. I shot a Killing Curse at you, a spell no one has ever survived, but somehow, you absorbed the curse and deflected it back at me. There was an explosion when the curse grazed me, and I was severely weakened and fled, but not before placing a Remote Listening Charm on your crib.

"From that, I learned what happened afterwards. What really happened was that you, using both yours and your brother's magic, did an incredible feat and absorbed and deflected the curse. But there was a complication. A piece of wood from the explosion had created a lightning-shaped cut on Alexander's forehead covered with the residue of the curse. Combined with the fact that Alexander's core was significantly less depleted than yours, Dumbledore incorrectly believed that your brother had deflected the curse, killing me, and severely depleting your magic to do so. He then convinced your parents to abandon you to your mother's Muggle sister, Petunia Dursley née Evans ,and her husband, and you know the rest better than I."

"What about the Longbottoms?"

"While I attacked the Potter cottage, a team of my best curse-breakers and warders had tracked down where the Longbottoms were hiding. After repeated offers that no one would be harmed, all of which the Longbottoms stupidly refused, they decided to dismantle the wards. Midway through the process, one of them made a mistake, causing the house to implode. The adult Longbottoms were killed, but Neville Longbottom managed to create a magical shield with a strong burst of accidental magic. When his grandmother, the Dowager Lady Augusta Longbottom arrived, she falsely assumed that the shield was her son Frank's last act, not believing that a baby could perform such a powerful feat of magic. Recently, I have also received intelligence that the Dowager Longbottom resents Neville for surviving and has been emotionally abusing him."

"Forgive me for asking so bluntly, but how the hell did you survive?"

"I managed to quickly gather and reabsorb all of my Horcruxes, using various agents, reclaiming enough life force to tether my soul to my body. Ever since, I have been in hiding, gathering my strength and recruiting allies, until I can strike again."

"How do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Why, Lyra," he gave a grin, "you'll just have to trust me."

"Trust doesn't easily come to a person with my sort of upbringing. Wouldn't you agree, Lord Slytherin?"

"That's true, Lyra. But what reason would I have to lie to you?"

"I don't know, my lord . You tell me."

"None, Lyra. None at all. You are completely powerless here. If I wanted to, I could kill you right now and no one would ever know. There's no reason for me to bother giving you false information."

His expression turned more serious. "One last thing, Lyra. It's about your friend, Zoe."

Lyra snarled. "Don't you dare say her name!"

He ignored her. "In 1979 one of my best Death Eaters, a man named Evan Rosier, was killed. After his death, House Rosier evacuated their safe house, which had been under a Fidelius with Evan as the Secret-Keeper. In the confusion, his one-year-old daughter, one Zoe Saoirse Rosier, was lost, presumed dead."

Lyra raised an eyebrow. "You can't mean…"

"Yes, I can. Zoe looks identical to Evan Rosier. The ages match up. And she was clearly a witch."

"Why did you tell me this, Lord Slytherin?" said Lyra.

"Why, Lyra, I did it out of the kindness of my heart."

Lyra visibly scoffed. "Bullshit. You want something from me."

"Correct."

"What is it?"

"You already know you and your late friend Zoe are not to first to suffer at the hands of Muggles. I did, almost half a century ago. So did several of my Death Eaters.

"Muggles are destroying us, themselves, and the world. They breed like rabbits, depleting Earth's resources. They have invented weapons so powerful they could wipe all humans out, and they have created thousands more of them. They kill hundreds of thousands of their own kind every year. Muggles have become a plague on the surface of the Earth.

"My attack on the Potters made me realise my own mortality. For years, I have been covertly searching for an heir, to continue my legacy should I die. None of my Death Eaters have proven themselves worthy."

"And?" Lyra said. Her green eyes stared at him with suspicion.

"Surely you have noticed the similarities between us. We are both powerful. Child prodigies. Solitary. Half-bloods. Parselmouths. Would you like me to adopt you, and raise you into my heir, and the future Dark Lady? Let me be clear. There will be pain and suffering in your future should you accept. You will resent me, perhaps even hate me. But I can offer you strength and power. Freedom and opportunity."

For the first time since he had met her, Lyra looked stunned. She quickly recovered

"Why, I would be honoured… father."

Author's Notes: Alexander Sirius Potter is an original character created and owned by me. As I've said before, Zoe is also an OC created and owned by me.