Summer 1980

With his intelligence no longer being impeded by his split soul, taking over the Ministry had been laughably easy. All Thomas had to do was put on a play. Taking his position amongst the Wizengamot as Lord Gaunt he appealed to the majority of the population. Half-bloods. He promised things like sponsorships for advanced magical education, letters of recommendation to the various work guilds of the country, and most importantly, protection against the mudbloods who would rob them of opportunities and would drag them down. He had even made his own half-blood status public to help give his claims and promises legitimacy. The public, like the sheep they were, jumped at what was offered. All they had to do was swear fealty to pure-blood families under his faction.

Herding the sheep was the easy part. What truly brought the downfall of the Ministry of Magic was the sheer number of sleeper agents amongst the various departments, especially the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

It had all been thanks to Amelia Bones.

Before the birth of Hydrus

The Bones were an Ancient and Noble house and Amelia had been a rising Chief Auror in charge of her own squad and training the new recruits who were desperate to fight against the Death Eater threat and the Dark Lord. Voldemort had paid the Bones family a personal visit in the dead of night, using his magical knowledge to sneak his way past the wards and into the luxurious estate befitting an Ancient and Noble family. From there the rest of the mission had been ridiculously easy. He rounded up the entire family including Lord Bones, Amelia's sister Amanda,and Amelia herself. Then he offered Amelia a choice.

Join the Death Eaters willingly or watch your family be brutally murdered and defiled and be forced to join anyway. She tried to resist of course but it was quickly broken when the Dark Lord used the Cruciatus curse on her father and started to slowly undress her sister before her eyes. Once she submitted to him, he branded her arm with the Dark Mark and finally got to the point of his visit.

Voldemort grabbed her by her crimson hair roughly and stared deep into her large brown eyes. As a newly marked death eater her mental defense was irrelevant as he shifted through her thoughts and memories, implementing his newest technique. A master level legilimens was able to influence a person's thoughts and feelings and even speak telepathically. Voldemort used this skill and combined it with the Imperious curse to create something truly insidious. Every thought, every feeling, every action Amelia would take or have from now on would be from the result of what the Dark Lord had done. He had invented psychic surgery, completely rewiring the fundamental way Amelia thought, making her nothing more than a violent and loyal death eater ready to be unleashed at a moment's notice.

Unfortunately for Amelia, the Dark Lord didn't believe in overkill and he had made sure to repeat the process over and over again until the sun had started to rise. Then using his psychic prowess he hid her new core personality under occlumency shields and reconstructed her old personality using her memories on top of those. With his work done he obliviated the rest of the family and tucked them back into bed to keep the guise of stealth and sent Amelia on ahead to work.

As Lord Gaunt he advocated that basic occlumency should be a requirement for all aurors to help them resist the Imperious curse. With most of the Wizengamot being his death eaters the bill go pushed through and Amelia as a Chief Auror repeated the same process that she went through on all of those that studied under her, growing Lord Voldemort's army.

Winter 1980

With the people and the law technically being on his side the death eaters began military occupation of the various magical villages and hamlets across the country. Diagon Alley, Saintsbridge, and even the fabled Godric's Hollow. Each place under his rule had to follow simple but extremely strict rules.

Curfew was at eight

Mudbloods must be registered

Mudbloods are not under any circumstances allowed a wand

Death Eater occupation had not been taken well by mudbloods and they were met with plenty of resistance. But due to Thomas's cunning the death eater's didn't have to lift a finger to squash the rebellion. It had been the average citizen, the half-bloods, who were enjoying the benefits of the new regime and didn't want the blunders of a few mudbloods to mess it all up that had turned on their neighbors. Realizing that both the government and their countrymen were against them, they had no choice but to put an end to their foolish ideas of equality.

The Dark Lord's greatest victory and greatest defeat however was the Slaughter of Hogsmeade. It had happened suddenly in broad daylight, a calculated burst of extreme violence. Thomas and his death eaters dragged people out their homes and shops and executed with dark magic for all to see. The targets were irrelevant as it was a mere show of force. Fiendfyre burned in the background as people screamed for their lives, ran, hid, tried fighting back, anything to escape the nightmare and terror. The people's hope arrived in the form of a legion of aurors who did their best to subdue the fire and rescue civilians. Finally after essentially playing in Dumbledore's backyard the old man and his Order showed themselves in an effort to help the aurors. Except Dumbledore had not come alone. He had brought with him the very people Thomas had gone through great lengths to avoid alerting.

International Defense Agents. The elite fighting force of the ICW. As Lord Voldemort he took great care to make sure that any muggle hunting his followers took part in was at a minimum and as Thomas he had forbidden it entirely. The ICW was forbidden by their own laws to interfere in a country's civil war unless the Statute Of Secrecy came under risk. Thomas and Voldemort shared the same hubris, he had underestimated Dumbledore. Albus had used his position as Supreme Mugwump along with the stories of the muggleborns and members of the Order of the Phoenix to plead his case to the ICW. He had begged them for IDA's help in order to prevent another Grindelwald situation, and of course the ICW broke their laws and had loaned Dumbledore a whole IDA battalion. Some of the most highly trained, highly skilled, witches and wizards on the face of the planet.

With a single mental command Thomas awakened all of his sleeper agents, and pressed his wand to the Dark Mark on his forearm and called forth the majority of his death eaters.

What followed was widely considered the bloodiest battle in wizarding history. There were limits or show of restraint on either side as IDA members were not bound by any laws concerning dark magic.

Cursed Fire roared. Thunder crashed, splitting both heaven and earth. Golems made of both earth and ice wreaked havoc. Through the use of necromancy the slain rose again to serve as meat shields, or used the last remaining amount of magic they had in their body to get pot shots off. Conjured daggers, hatchets, and arrows rained down skewering foe and ally alike.

Through the chaos and destruction Thomas and Albus dueled. The Dark Lord's power was overwhelming as he called upon the family magic of House Gaunt, Ophidiomancy. Whole generations of magical snakes, the blood sucking Vampiric Vipers rushed forward in a wave intent on draining the blood of their foe. The dark creatures were completely obliterated however, because Dumbledore had brought more than just an army, he had discovered a magic thought only to be myth.

It was a power fuelled by collective hopes and dreams, fuelled by trust and companionship,by righteousness absent of vengeance, by faith. It was Holy Magic, magic fuelled by positive emotions from various people. It was the antithesis of dark magic, capable of vanquishing evil and dispelling even the darkest of curses. Albus had shared this power with members of his Order, so despite being fewer in number, the holy light they wielded was capable of obliterating the average death eater down to the soul level.

Thomas was no average death eater; however, he was a Dark Lord. The greatest Dark Lord. While he could not fundamentally understand the myriad of positive emotions necessary to power holy magic, his soul was protected anyway because he understood and reveled in one particular emotion. His love for Hydrus. The Dark Lord's resistance to holy magic had caught Dumbledore off guard, and thinking a mile a minute he executed his plan.

"Imperio!" Albus threw off the curse almost immediately but he wasn't fast enough to completely block the follow up. "Ventus fissile!" A burst of rending wind blasted forth from the Dark Lord's and it cleanly separated Albus from his wand arm and left leg. The old wizard fell to the ground covered in blood and screaming. Thomas let out a deep laugh at the sight of his greatest advisory on the ground before him. He closed the distance with a confident, meandering gait.

"How the mighty fall Dumbledore. To think that there was a time people said I feared you, how ridiculous. How does it feel to know that all your struggling was in vain, that even with IDA at your side you were the predestined loser?" Thomas shook his head in amusement. "Any last words old man?" All of a sudden Dumbledore's screaming stopped. He looked up at Thomas and gave a cheeky wink. "Sanctus Expulso."

Thomas's eyes widened and he brought his wand up to quickly finish off his prey but he was too late. An explosion of holy light went off from the crafty wizard's still attached hand. Thomas had let his arrogance get the better of him and caught the blast full force, his body instantly being vaporized.

There was a brief moment of disbelieving silence as both the Dark Lord and Dumbledore had been caught in the blast.

"Fall back! Escape by any means!" The order had came from Lucius. Instantly aurors and death eaters alike began to disapparate and portkey out. IDA members were quick to give chase and members of the Order also retreated after seeing the one person they had put all of their faith in blow himself up.

With the apparent destruction of both the Dark Lord and Dumbledore, IDA forces tried freeing the towns under death eater occupation and restoring the Ministry back under ICW guidelines. They were met with unexpected extreme resistance however. To the average citizen of the magical UK IDA forces were invaders who were trying to disrupt the cushy new lives they had become accustomed to. Even the mudbloods, certified second-class citizens, lent no aid or tried to jump at the opportunity of rebellion, their will to fight long since extinguished.

IDA was in a pickle of their own making. They couldn't restore the country under ICW mandated guidelines without arresting or killing most of the population. On the other hand they weren't supposed to be there in the first place. Things really started to go south however as the new year came about. Most of the Inner Circle had survived the Slaughter of Hogsmeade and had rallied the remaining minions, low rank death eaters and half-bloods sworn to the old families. With their forces reunified the death eaters butchered the remaining IDA forces. While death eaters were powerful soldiers of darkness, frontline fighting was not a specialty. Death eaters were crafty in a way that IDA had never had to combat before. The only sure fire way to tell if someone was a death eater was if they had the dark mark. So most of the death eaters took off their mask, hung up their robes and blended in with everyday people, a perfect disguise. They used that disguise to get close and catch their prey off guard using dark magic to shred their skin, tear the muscles apart, melt eyeballs, boil or flash freeze blood, anything to ensure a painful death.

IDA was determined to restore the old status-quo of the ICW even if it meant the use of extreme force. So despite their earlier hesitation they began invading people's homes and made mass arrest of anyone they suspected to be connected to the Dark Lord or his death eaters, keeping their prisoners in camps to await questioning, trial, relocation, and execution.

It was in one of those camps where baby Hydrus and Rodolphus could be found. They had been captured at the Assault of Rookwood Keep, a death eater respite. As the oracle Rodolphus couldn't offer much in the way of combat like he used to as his body continuously failed him. If they wanted to truly be rid of IDA the death eaters would need Bellatrix, The Strongest Dark Witch of The Modern Era. Bellatrix had been extremely reluctant to leave Hydrus's side was convinced by other members of the Inner Circle that the only way to keep the prince safe was to help kill all of his enemies. So she joined the fight, using her expertise in ambush and rush tactics, in tandem with her prodigious skill with dark magic to decimate key IDA locations along with their members.

While Bellatrix was out killing Rodolphus was the one left in charge of Hydrus being the only member of the Inner Circle left to hold things together should the rest fail. He hunkered down in Rookwood Keep in the Scottish Highlands hoping to rely on its impressive wards and fortified composition to wait out the rest of the war. But even he, the Dark Lord's oracle, could not have foreseen a traitor.

Fucking Peter Pettigrew. He had been there at the Slaughter of Hogsmeade and had bore witness to the holy magic on display. A power that was strong enough to destroy the Dark Lord. Power was the only thing that held Pettigrew's loyalty. So the slimebag went to IDA and spilled as many secrets as he could, revealing the existence of the Dark Lord's son, in exchange for witness protection and limited access to IDA spells. But in his power hungry eagerness he had forgotten one critical detail. The rat was not sworn to the Dark Lord but to Hydrus, the one he had just betrayed. The rat went through sudden total organ failure dying almost immediately, but the damage was done. IDA was determined to claim the boy. The son of the most powerful Dark Lord in history was bound to be extremely powerful. He would serve as the perfect figure head to bring the country back to order.

With Rookwood Keep fallen and Hydrus in the hands of the enemy, Bellatrix who's grasp on sanity was fragile at best, went absolutely feral. She took up the name Nebula and began killing indiscriminately leaving bloody mist and destruction everywhere she went. The death eaters would give her a target and she would pounce. Due to the combined efforts of the death eaters, the citizens under their control, and Nebula they wiped out IDA down to the last man, effectively putting an end to the war at last.

Free at last Rodolphus took Hydrus and hid amongst the muggle world determined to keep the boy safe should IDA return and instill upon the drive needed to complete his destiny. Nebula's rampage on the other hand didn't stop. It would never stop until she had Hydrus. So for her own sake and the sake of the general population she was sealed away under a semi-permeable Atlus blood ward.

Current Time: Early June 1991

"Any questions?" Rodolphus asked. Hydrus was silent for a moment as he digested everything he just learned, finally he spoke. "What does the prophecy say exactly?" Rodolphus shook his head. "I can't tell you. Me and everyone else who knows the full details are sworn to silence. The only one who can tell you is your father."

"But he's dead." Hydrus said, his voice small. Rodolphus gave the boy a knowing look. " In a way. But he can be revived." The young boy's eyes widened. "How?!" he asked desperately. Rodolphus gave him a small smile. "I suspect that it's a surprise he'll want to share with you himself. Now why don't you stop stalling and ask me what I know is on your mind."

Hydrus bit his lip. "My parents, the death eaters, they killed so many people." He shook his head trying to articulate his thoughts." They don't sound like the good guys. Why did they fight so hard and do so many terrible things, what was it all for?"

Rodolphus sighed. "Listen to me, Hydrus. There's no such thing as good guys and bad guys. There is only power, and those too weak to seek it. What we did was for the sake of creating a new world. A world full of magic, where the strong ruled at the very top and to do that we needed to get the weaklings in order." The sickly man stood suddenly. "Come with me. I want to show you something." Hydrus got to his feet and followed the man into the large kitchen. Off to the side there was a cellar door that Rodolphus swung open and descended down. What Hydrus saw shocked him.

"WHY THE FUCK DO YOU HAVE PEOPLE CHAINED UP IN YOUR BASEMENT!?" It was a rather reasonable question. Rodolphus ignored his screaming and turned to face the boy drawing his wand, and Hydrus went very still. "Do you have your wand Hydrus?" It was the most serious voice he had ever heard the man use. He nodded. "Take it out. I'm going to teach you some magic." From his pocket he retrieved his blackthorn wand.

"Close your eyes and focus. I want you to imagine your magic flowing through you and out into your wand." Hydrus didn't move, not trusting enough to close his eyes around a full grown wizard who was currently armed. "It's alright. I can't hurt you, remember. I just need you to trust me a little while longer." Rodolphus reassured. Slowly Hydrus closed his eyes and drew upon his concentration, imagining his magic pumping through him like blood, originating from his heart. He could feel the hair on the back of his neck raise, and he smelt a strange scent coming from the prisoners. For whatever reason the smell was starting to make him really excited in a way he wasn't used to before. He squirmed and wiggled and licked his lips as a wave of friskiness coursed through him.

"Open your eyes and look at me." Hydrus did so. "Whoa!" It was like having x-ray vision. There was a ball of golden light right where the heart was supposed to be, and Rodolphus's veins and arteries flowed with that same light. As he looked Hydrus felt a deep pit of hunger form in his stomach, and the longer he looked the hungrier he hand reached for the golden orb hidden in the man's chest subconsciously knowing that eating it was the only way to sate his new found hunger. Rodolphus caught his wrist in a gentle but firm grasp.

"You've seen me. Now look at the muggles." The older wizard moved out of Hydrus's field of view leaving the boy to see the muggles for what they truly were. There was no light, no life within any of them. They looked like clay humanoid figures and it was something Hydrus found deeply, psychologically, unnatural.

"What the hell is that thing?" Hydrus's voice was low and filled with aggression. "That, my prince, is what muggles really look like when seen through magic. They're disgusting aren't they. It isn't even human." Rodolphus whispered, taking care to make sure Hydrus didn't turn to look at him.

"I have one last thing to show you, let's walk." Grabbing the prince by the shoulders Rodolphus led him all the way to the back of the cellar to where a different sort of prisoner was held. It was a middle-aged man who had clearly been in this place for a while. "Look at him, Hydrus. Look at the mudblood."

With his senses augmented by magic the young wizard glanced at the mudblood chained to the wall, his eyes instinctively going to heart. He saw the same tantalizing golden fruit, but unlike with Rodolphus its light didn't flow through the mudblood's body, only specks of gold could be found amongst the mud like color of its blood. It was almost as if-

"That doesn't belong to him!" Hydrus said angrily. "No it doesn't. That's why your parents fought so hard during the war. These primitive imposters thought they were our equal. They thought they deserved the same rights and privileges normal people are supposed to have, and they were willing to hurt and suppress us to get them." Rodolphus whispered, discreetly taking Hydrus's wand. Hydrus snarled, his canines becoming more exaggerated.

"Are you hungry Hydrus? It's been almost ten years since you've had your favorite food. Renervate." Rodolphus revived the mudblood from unconsciousness and as it looked around it's eyes landed on the two in front of it. Immediately the mudblood began to struggle and beg. "Please! No more. Let me go and I won't tell a soul, I swear!" As the mudblood begged for its life, Hydrus was met with that same delectable scent from earlier, except this time he knew what it was. It was the smell of fear.

Rodolphus nudged the boy forward just a tad. Hydrus licked his lips, having eyes only for the golden fruit within the mudblood's chest. Spurred on by the heavenly smell of fear and Rodolphus's nudging, Hydrus raised his hand, his fingernails elongating into claws, and in one fluid motion ripped the fruit out of the mudblood's chest. It made a wet sort of hacking sound before it went still, forever. Hydrus paid no mind to the mudblood's theatrics, instead choosing to marvel at the pulsating golden fruit in his hand. He raised it to his lips and took a nibble.

Power and lust flooded his body. Hydrus fell to his knees as his legs gave out, his hips bucking as if they had a mind of their own. All the while he continued to devour the fruit, the heart. When he was finished with his meal he let out a small satisfied moan and began trying to lick his fingers clean. Had Hydrus been in his normal state of mind he would have seen the multicolored lights of ambient magic that fluttered around him briefly before winking out. Rodolphus meanwhile watched in silence as Hydrus consumed the still beating heart of the mudblood, a small satisfied smirk on his face. Due to his actions he had just altered the future. He had turned the boy against muggles with ease, and now Hydrus would never be able to see mudbloods as anything more than a source of food. Now there were only just a few things left to do, and they would be on the most optimized route of ensuring the Great Prophecy.

It was time to bring the boy back to his mother.