Chapter 4. He Was Not Trashiness
Something bit Harry's toe, and he woke up in pain. He felt bugs crawling on his body, itchy and uncomfortable. There was also a strong smell of blood and decay that hit his nose. The magic circle emitted a dim light, allowing him to distinguish that he was in a dark stone cellar, surrounded by... corpses. Some had already rotted and even maggots had appeared, while others had been gnawed by rats, leaving only white bones.
Harry let out a startled cry and quickly got up, cleaning the dirt off his body. He stepped back to the wall and pressed his back against it, only seeing a sea of corpses in front of him, even more corpses. Was this... the castle's corpse disposal site? So his father thought he was dead and threw him here?
Harry carefully avoided stepping on bodies and searched for an exit in the cellar. The cellar was not big, only about the height of an adult, and the exit was located in the corner of the ceiling, without a ladder to climb up, and was covered by a heavy stone slab. And his wand... was not by his side.
As his gaze moved upward, he recognized the faintly glowing magic circle on the ceiling. Its function was to... make the bodies disappear? It would activate every once in a while to clean up the cellar.
He had to escape before this magic was activated! He didn't want to die, he wanted to live!
"Help!" he shouted loudly, "Father, I'm still alive, don't leave me here!" The lonely voice echoed in the cellar, but there was no other response.
He knocked on the wall a few times, but besides getting bruises on his hands, there was no other effect.
What should he do... he took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure. If the only exit was this one in the corner of the ceiling, he at least had to reach it. Without a wand, there was no wand on anyone else, no broom, not even anything else to stand on, only... Harry looked around and took a deep breath. So be it.
An adult's body was indeed heavy for a seven-year-old child, but at a critical moment, one would always exert tremendous potential. He quickly piled up many corpses by dragging and carrying them, and the height was high enough to stand on. He climbed up and felt the stone cover on top.
Harry pushed hard, but the huge stone didn't budge.
Pushing again, still no movement.
Harry looked around, racked his brain, but he really had nothing to use. He couldn't call for his father, nor did he have the authority to call the house-elf, and no one knew he was trapped here and needed rescue. His father thought he was dead and threw him here.
The despair in Harry's heart was expanding. He pushed the giant stone again, still no movement, but the pile of bodies under his feet was starting to collapse.
But he really didn't want to die here. The instinct to survive was raging in his heart. He wished so much that his father would suddenly appear and rescue him, just like when they first met and he was about to freeze to death on the street, his father came to save him.
Maybe he was coming now. Harry listened carefully for footsteps above, but there was nothing.
[warnings all clear.]
What should he do...
Maybe try magic, even without a wand, his father can use wandless magic, right? Although that's very difficult.
Harry tried hard to concentrate and remember the feeling of magic flowing through his body when he used a wand. A simple levitation charm should be enough.
But it still failed. Trying again, once, twice, three times, the boulder still didn't move, as if mocking his efforts.
Then the magic circle on the ceiling brightened up, and the corpse-reducing curse began to shine out of the room, and the nearby corpses disappeared in the light. Harry's heart was pounding, and he did his best. "Wingardium Leviosa."
The boulder floated silently, as light as a feather. Harry crawled out at the fastest speed and saw the pile of corpses that had been under his feet disappear in the deadly light.
He lay gasping for breath on the floor next to the cellar exit for a while, then got up to find the Dark Lord.
"...Father?"
The Dark Lord was still looking at his research notes. "Oh, you're still alive?" He didn't even lift his eyelids.
"I..." Harry, still in shock, wanted to complain, but seeing his father's attitude, he could only swallow his grievances and say, "Uh, I'm fine." He bit his lip.
From then on, he never mentioned that he had a problem.
He wanted to say that he wasn't trashiness, but he didn't say it. Little Harry didn't even give himself time to rest, but quickly resumed his normal schedule of practicing magic, as if the experience of fainting and being thrown into a corpse disposal site never happened. The words he didn't say out loud, he would prove to his father through his actions that he wasn't trashiness.
Sacrificing a Patronus was already a very safe and simple dark magic, and in retrospect, little Harry didn't understand why he had fainted. He tried hard to recall the steps of the ritual, and he had done each step well, and the ritual had clearly been successful. The child sighed in frustration and self-blame. Maybe he was just too weak and melodramatic. Why was he the only one who fainted when others didn't? Of course, it was his fault, no wonder his father despised him... Harry admonished himself to work harder. He couldn't be like this, he had to become stronger. He couldn't be useless like this.
He solved the problem of the Patronus, and even the cold and horror of the entire castle disappeared, giving him a sense of security. Without his father's explanation, Harry had already learned a lot. He understood that this change was due to the fact that a Patronus was a pure force of light, so those who had a Patronus instinctively felt danger and discomfort towards dark forces. Just like fear of heights and fear of the dark, humans' instinctual feelings help them avoid danger, and dark forces in nature are also a form of danger. Losing a Patronus means losing this sense of danger and losing this layer of protection.
Now, he himself had become a part of the darkness.
"Little boy, were you also caught? Are you okay, any injuries?" the man asked. He had been knocked out and captured by a group of robe-wearing people with abilities, and thrown into a dungeon, then brought to this study by a little elf. He saw this little boy, thin and young, no more than eight years old, also wearing a robe, possibly with those bad people? But he was still a child. The man felt he shouldn't have too much prejudice against a child.
The holly wood wand pointed at the prisoner brought up from the dungeon: "Imperio."
The man's gaze became unfocused, his eyes no longer focused. He would obey any command from Harry. Harry made him sit down, stand up, do a few somersaults, make some strange faces, and the victims followed suit one by one. His Imperious curse was equally successful on humans.
He had been practicing magic on animals before, but given the mental magic properties of the Imperious curse, human mental abilities far exceeded those of animals. His father randomly brought up a prisoner from the dungeon for him to practice on. This man looked like a Muggle. To be honest, Harry's memories of the Muggle world were not pleasant, and he was even a little scared. He was thinking that this man would also call him a freak like his uncle. But he didn't.
Harry tried a few particularly embarrassing commands, and the man completed them one by one. He looked at his father, was this considered passing the test?
[Warning: Blood and Violence! Skip if you will feel uncomfortable!]
"You can try to make him stab himself a few times, these kinds of commands often encounter strong resistance. You can only have an effective practice by using him," Voldemort didn't look up, his attention wasn't on Harry's side, he was still focused on his research, the sound of the quill and parchment rubbing together making a slight rustling sound.
"... " Harry's heart skipped a beat. This man... didn't harm Harry just now, and Harry didn't want to harm him either.
"Do it, Harry." Seeing that he had no response, Voldemort's tone began to impatient. "Or make him jump into the fireplace and burn himself to death, choose one, Harry."
"Yes father," Harry replied softly, he knew he had to make a choice, at least the knife wound was not fatal, and Harry could help heal his wounds. He conjured a small knife and handed it to the man, giving the command.
This time Harry felt a slight resistance in the link of the Imperious curse. To be honest, Voldemort wasn't wrong, this kind of practice was effective. He focused and strengthened the control of the curse, and that little resistance quickly disappeared. The controlled man took the knife and stabbed himself fiercely in the abdomen, then pulled it out, stabbed again, and blood flowed like a river.
"Good." Voldemort's attention was now on Harry, as he had been observing his reactions.
Harry waved his wand to stop more bleeding, and the cuts healed at a visible speed.
Voldemort raised an eyebrow. "Yes, you can practice something else. Don't let him die too quickly."
Nagini was in good spirits. "Can I eat him after Harry is done playing with him? Hurry up, Harry."
Under Voldemort's request, Harry tried several other mental spells on the unfortunate victim. They were all successful.
The victim was barely alive after being repeatedly tortured by mentally dark magic.
[warnings all clear]
"Are you... okay?" Little Harry felt sad. He didn't want to do this, but his father said it wasn't a big deal.
His father also said Harry was always flabby and impotent, causing him to be useless, and he needed to experience the real world.
Harry didn't want to see his father disappointed. He wanted to be a good boy, he would try his best to correct his mistakes and not let his father down!
Meanwhile, the Dark Lord continued to observe Harry. Of course, he had long felt Harry's strong attachment to him, and he was pleased with this.
The victim, who was barely alive, was sent away by the Dark Lord with a death spell. Harry looked at the body, feeling a mix of emotions. But he was trying to suppress his sympathy. His father said not to be so weak.
For the rest of the day, Harry read books and didn't have much time to grieve. His father assigned him a new task that required him to finish several books within a week. He was currently reading "Human Sacrifice", which was about using live sacrifices in ancient magic to activate certain magic arrays.
However, that night, Harry dreamt about the deceased person. In his dream, he called Harry little freak in Uncle Vernon's voice.
Harry was injured while practicing dark magic, but he didn't dare tell his father. He was truly afraid that his father would call him a failure, and he didn't want to see the disappointment in his father's eyes. He tried hard to behave normally and hoped his father wouldn't notice that he wasn't strong enough.
It wasn't until the evening that Harry could finally rest. The pain of the day had left his body extremely fatigued, and he almost fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow. Or maybe he passed out, because he didn't wake up until nine o'clock the next day. The alarm clock went off in the morning, but it didn't manage to wake him up.
Harry woke up still feeling groggy and uncomfortable. He rubbed his eyes and looked at the time, and almost immediately jumped out of bed - because he had a class scheduled with his father in the morning and he was late! His father must be very angry! Harry almost didn't dare to see him. But he would admit his mistake and face the consequences bravely. He had always been trying to be a good boy.
So Harry accepted his father's punishment. His father was really angry, but it was only because Nagini pleaded for him that Harry didn't suffer too much. This made Harry feel relieved. His father was really kind to him, wasn't he? After the punishment was over, Harry gasped and promised, "I will never be late again, I promise."
Nagini swam over to him, rubbed the tip of her tail against the boy's leg, and raised her huge head to stick out her tongue at the Dark Lord. "So don't be angry, master. Look, little Harry has admitted his mistake."
The Dark Lord snorted, neither approving nor disapproving.
Harry went back to his bedroom and added a spell to the room - he called it the Alarm Curse, a spell combination he had designed himself with the Alertness Charm as the core. The Alertness Charm was taught to him by his father a few days ago.
Harry still remembered when his father introduced this spell, he said that it was often used by dark wizards in magic rituals to prevent coma and confusion. The effect of the Alertness Charm was to mobilize the reserve of life force to keep oneself awake. As long as one didn't die, they could stay awake.
Because many dark magic rituals were dangerous, if a wizard became unconscious or confused during a step and the following steps of the ritual couldn't be completed, it would cause even more serious injuries, and in severe cases, even death. So most dark wizards would cast the Alertness Charm on themselves as a buff before playing dangerous magic rituals.
As long as he didn't die, he could stay awake. The Alarm Curse in his room would trigger at seven o'clock every morning, and Harry had never been late again since then.
It was purely accidental when Harry used the Cruciatus Curse for the first time.
He happily skipped into his father's study, but found himself facing a captured prisoner when his father was not there. The man lunged at him, attempting to steal his wand. Harry quickly evaded him, but was cornered with no escape.
His father's words from yesterday flashed through his mind, "It can be used on your enemies."
"Crucio!" Harry summoned his magical power and pronounced the curse. A red light flashed, and the man was hit and started screaming and struggling on the ground.
Harry didn't expect this kind of effect and was shocked. He quickly stopped the curse and couldn't help but ask, "I'm sorry... are you okay?"
But the man grabbed Harry's wrist and choked him, "You little devil!"
The boy's wrist immediately had red marks, and Harry couldn't wield his wand anymore. The wand was taken by the man, and Harry felt suffocated. As an eight-year-old child, he was no match for an adult.
At this moment, a green light flashed in front of him, and Harry felt the pressure on his neck disappear. He quickly retrieved his wand and gasped for air. Meanwhile, the man had fallen to the ground, lifeless.
It was his father who came. His father saved Harry once again, didn't he? But Harry didn't expect to see the man die, and he couldn't help but look at the body on the ground a little longer, feeling sorry for him.
"You shouldn't have stopped that Cruciatus Curse," his father said, somewhat reproachfully.
"...I didn't expect that curse to have that effect," the child who did wrong lowered his head.
"Crucio is a very interesting curse, you know? Death Eaters often use it, but they actually use a simplified version. Its pain is no less powerful and can torture their enemies to death."
"Simplified version? What does the full version look like?" Harry blinked, unable to imagine anything worse than torturing someone to death.
"The full version of the Cruciatus Curse won't kill the victim. It's a very sophisticated soul magic that can extract power from the victim's soul and keep the soul from leaving the body." Voldemort was somewhat entertained by this irony.
"Not dying, isn't that great? So the full version of the Cruciatus Curse is actually more merciful?" Harry innocently liked this idea.
"I wouldn't call it merciful. Ensuring that the tortured person doesn't die, doesn't go insane, and even doesn't faint, but rather feels every millisecond of excruciating pain, is what makes it the top torture. If it were so easy to let the victim die, how could it be called the highest level of torture?"
Little Harry was stunned. He didn't understand why dark wizards would invent such terrible curses. But he learned not to be surprised by this and didn't want to make his father unhappy or be called weak and incompetent.
However, Harry never used the Cruciatus Curse again after this incident. This was the only time.
Voldemort wanted Harry to listen to the Death Eaters' reports on the recent battle, but didn't want them to know Harry was there. So the eight-year-old boy hid behind the door in the study and used a spell to listen as Malfoy, Bella, Barty Crouch, and others came in one by one to report on their respective battles, and then left for the next person to come in and continue speaking.
After the last person finished reporting and left, Harry came out from behind the door and said, "Father, I don't quite understand. Why did you call Crouch back? We clearly had the upper hand in that battle, and the main force of the Order of the Phoenix was being held off by another group. If the Death Eaters continued to stay there, those Order of the Phoenix members would likely be captured or killed." Harry had listened to all the reports and synthesized all the information, but was still puzzled by the overall picture of the battle.
"Oh, guess why's that?" Voldemort seemed quite satisfied with Harry's analysis and did not deny his judgment, but instead asked him to continue.
"Um..." The eight-year-old boy was really puzzled. Father obviously agreed with his judgment, so why did he call Crouch's team back? "Don't you want to kill or capture them?"
Voldemort laughed meaningfully, "How about continue to guess, why is that?"
"Uh..." Little Harry was confused. The Order of the Phoenix had always been at odds with Father. Wouldn't it be faster to win the war by getting rid of them as soon as possible?
"Let your imagination be bolder." Voldemort seemed to be in a good mood.
"You don't want to win?" Harry felt like he had asked a stupid question and hoped that Father wouldn't mind.
"Harry, Harry, you always surprise me. Here's another hint: Death Eaters." Voldemort enunciated these two words deliberately.
"Huh?" Harry was stunned for a moment. Suddenly, everything Father had asked him to read, Father's research, the Death Eaters, everything came together. "Ah! Could it be... you really don't want to win, because winning the war would end it, and what you want is the war itself..."
Voldemort encouraged Harry to continue.
"...and the deaths brought by the war." Harry quickly went on, "Because death is a sacrifice, a power. You're running a death-driven magic rituals. The Death Eaters are named after this, just tools for collecting death. This war is just a cover, and your real goal is..."
Harry had heard from Nagini that Father, like him, had experienced many life-and-death situations when he was younger. That was during World War II, when times were very difficult and bombs were flying everywhere. Harry felt that he could empathize with young Tom's feelings at that time, and he knew what kind of obsession people had when they were on the brink of death. Harry had also heard from Nagini that Father's original name was Tom Riddle, and the name Voldemort was one he had chosen for himself.
Vol de mort. The answer was almost in his grasp.
"...to fly away from death.