THE MIGHT OF MAGIC

July 31, 10 years after Godric's Hollow

Skies of England

Harold rushed through the wee morning air on his besom of yew. Though the now 12-year-old sorcerer longed for the day he could fly with raw power alone, he understood it would be years before he could even project his spirit as an apparition — nevermind transfigure his body into a semi-spectral state like his master.

Shaking away his yearnings, the Heir to House Mortis refocused on the present and ran his hands over the besom pole. His master praised the superiority of a wizard broom crafted by an owner's own enchantments over the assembly-line commodities favored by the lesser of their kind. Unlike the mudblood contraptions that simply used the rider's magic to power pre-made settings, Harold's true-made besom served as a direct extension of his aerial sorcery. In addition to maintaining intimate control over his ride, Harold also used his besom as a channel for his emerging cloaking powers.

He of course still wore his cherished Mantle of Darkness. But over the past months, Harold discovered that he possessed a natural affinity for concealment of a different brand than his master. Vastator Mortis, supreme master of black magic, absorbed surrounding energy into himself and transfigured into a shadowy wraith. The younger Mortis, however, found he could warp energy around him to form a mirage of his nonexistence.

Harold knew that when he mastered this rare talent, he could conduct sorcerers' business in broad daylight. He would be as invisible as he had been in Little Whinging, but only to serve the filth pain, misery and death.

Starting with the Dursleys.

As bitter hate churned within Harold, the sorcerer's faithful king cobra flicked his tongue and rubbed his head along his creator's arm.

"I'm alright, Halogi," Harold hissed at his concerned familiar. Even after a year and a month together, he still could be surprised at how easily the now six-foot serpent perceived his emotions.

Halogi loosed a low-pitched hiss of discontent at the answer.

"I wish I could kill all the filth that tormented me today, not just Vernon's sister," Harold admitted.

Halogi cocked his head as he sent questioning pheromones toward his creator.

"Dumbledore hid those that pollute my blood," Harold hissed bitterly. "He knows I shall seek to excise the taints. But he either does not know or does not care about Vernon Dursley's sister, as I thankfully share no blood with that cow."

Halogi hissed in shared frustration.

"I shall avenge myself and purify my blood," Harold promised. "My master purged the other contaminants from my mother's blood years ago, so I shall not allow the last of them to frolic freely for long."

Determination redoubled, Harold sped for the countryside of Surrey.

Surrey

After just over four hours of flight, with darkness still shrouding South East England, Harold glided his besom down onto the property of Marjorie Eileen Dursley. Knowing he had roughly half an hour till the break of dawn, the boy sorcerer circled the house and commenced a slow yet deliberate warding chant. Not to bestow protections upon Marge's abode, but to shroud it from the traitors that watched for spikes of magic in muggle areas.

Finally, just as blue twilight spread across the sky, Harold exhaled in exhaustion and satisfaction as he beheld the mystical fog he conjured around his target's house. These wards would not endure nearly as long as those at Manor Mortis, and that in fact was the point. If a Ministry of Magic investigator came across news of this filth's death and found it suspicious, they would arrive too late to accurately trace his sorcery.

Harold, confident his mist could absorb the black magic that would radiate from the house, sauntered to the threshold. Drawing forth the wand that once belonged to Quirinus Quirrell, the boy sorcerer bewitched each bulldog he came across to ensure none warned their breeder of his presence, much less protected her from him.

Upon reaching the master bedroom, Harold pointed his wand at the sleeping woman and cursed her with hallucinations of horror. He watched the strawberry-haired figure twist and turn with increasing distress, until she awoke in fright.

Harold smiled as the typically domineering woman shivered like she lay in the midst of a blizzard. The sweetest facet of the curse was that he was not conjuring any illusions. Marge effectively found herself in the midst of a psychosis episode, with everything she heard, felt and saw hailing from her own mind. And for a woman as cruel and wretched as her brother, Marge's torment would be terrible indeed.

Harold watched the woman that gleefully beat him every time she visited her brother, who cackled whenever she saw Dudley lay filthy hands upon him, and who set her rabid curs upon him for mere amusement. The original "Harry Hunter" now whimpered like the most pathetic of prey. But even this did not quench even an iota of his thirst for vengeance.

"Halogi," Harold hissed at his familiar. "I wish to see what it sees."

The king cobra speedily slithered to the squirming woman and sank his fangs into her arm. Rather than release venom, the serpent provided a medium through which Harold could now read his captive's mind with relative ease.

He laughed.

Apparently, the stone-hearted woman's greatest fear was that everyone would leave and abandon her to her miserable life. Even her beloved mutts, who she apparently devoted so much time to because she pushed her human friends away long ago.

"Imagine being so weak as to need the companionship of another," Harold hissed. Due to their mental link, Marge heard the boy sorcerer's words for the first time. But as her mind could not comprehend the sacred tongue, she shrieked in terror as she imagined a throng of vipers surrounding her.

"For nine years, I suffered alone in hell," Harold sibilated. "I emerged stronger than that fool Dumbledore ever dreamed. Forged by fire and brimstone, I am stronger than any wizard in my generation; and I shall be the strongest wizard to ever serve my master!"

Marge devolved into screams and sobs.

"You cannot even comprehend the purity of my voice, filthy muggle!" Harold taunted. "It seems almost a waste to grant you the honor of being my first kill. But your blood can reach filth of my mother's blood, and I shall use you as a message. Your precious nephew will taste my wrath this day, and his nights will be filled with terror till the day I put him out of his misery!"

Marge wailed as Harold howled with delight.

As the clock struck seven, Marge thrashed frantically at the center of a ritual circle. So lost was she in hours of delusion that she did not realize she was surrounded by a third of her own blood. She had no hope in comprehending the ceremony conducted for the past half hour.

"Get ready, Margie. We now proceed to the best part!" Harold informed the unresponsive woman. "Through your blood and my person, we shall reach out to your brother's son, and give him the most vivid vision of your passing."

The boy sorcerer then commenced a chant in the language of the Ancient Hellenes, invoking a blood curse through the black arts. Methodically, he commanded all of close relation to Marge to share in her terror. Those closest could even catch intermittent glimpses through her eyes.

Harold then called to Halogi in the serpent tongue, instructing the king cobra to trace the circle of blood with his venom. Once his familiar completed his task, the boy sorcerer drew his wand across his left palm and let his own blood mix with the ritual circle solution. He then channeled his Slytherin blessing to condemn his blood cousin to share in Marge's final agony.

Content with his work, Heir Mortis felt strain and elation combine into a rush of dark euphoria. He exhaled and threw his head back, loosening his cross-legged pose and reclining on his elbows. The grand finale to his visit approached, but he wished for Marge to partially return to reality.

As Marge's terror was mostly exported to her kin, the woman blinked her eyes rapidly before landing on Harold's cloaked form. With a hood and half mask obscuring his face, Harold gave a casual wave.

"Who–what–where?" Marge stammered.

"I have come to return a favor," Harold told her in raspy English. "Or rather, years of favors."

The boy sorcerer then directed the dozen bulldogs of the house to surround their former owner..

"Remember all those times you hunted me, Aunt Marge?" Harold growled.

Marge's eyes widened as her once faithful companions surveyed her with feral hunger.

"Feel free to beg," Harold goaded.

Beg, Marge did.

To his surprise, the boy sorcerer enjoyed this display even more than the hours Marge suffered under hallucinations. It likely helped that the once-proud woman now truly feared for her life – enough that she prostrated herself before a boy she once abused gleefully.

"It's okay Margie," Harold whispered as he patted the sobbing woman's head. "Your torment is at an end."

At this, the boy sorcerer commanded the bulldogs to devour their master.

"So long, Jezebel," Harold sneered at the remnant specks of gore once the dogs satisfied themselves. "Now get lost!" he directed at the creatures.

As the dozen dogs rushed out the front door, so too fled any hope Ministry law enforcement had of tracing his sorcery — if they were competent enough to realize the house to be a magical crime scene.

Or, more accurately, what would be left of the house once Harold set it on fire with gasoline.

October 31

Godric's Hollow, Suffolk

Harold shivered with fear and anticipation as he stalked into the wizard village named after Hogwarts' most famous founder. The greatest British wizard settlement aside from Scotland's Hogsmeade, the village housed esteemed families over the ages, including the Peverells, the Dumbledores, and the Potters.

The night of Samhain 11 years before, Harold's master walked the very streets that the boy sorcerer did now. But whereas the events of the former night sparked celebration across the Wizarding World, Harold sought to return a proper solemnity to a night that once struck terror into the hearts of all mudbloods, blood traitors, and filth.

Every Samhain, Godric's Hollow hosted a service of remembrance to the war against Lord Voldemort. Every Samhain, the dregs of society paraded about the Potters' abandoned house and proclaimed themselves to be heirs to the old family's legacy. Every Samhain, they sang praises to the mudbloods and muggles that sullied their once great village. And this Samhain, in the greatest insult of all, a squib would lead the ceremony that "honored" Harold's birth parents.

And not just any squib. Dumbledore arranged for the ultimate insult to the Potters by choosing the one that watched Harold's nine years of slavery from across the street of Privet Drive! Doubtlessly, witnessing a wizard's subjugation made the magic reject feel better about her own worthlessness. But tonight, House Mortis would claim vengeance.

However, Harold knew he must take the utmost care. The Mantle of Darkness cloaked his form and presence so long as he remained in shadow. A cover he would forgo when he illuminated the night with an arsenic-green killing curse. While the boy sorcerer expected to possess the advantage of surprise, he would also have precious few seconds to speed away on his besom if he did not want to be captured by the patrolling aurors.

At least no crumbling blood wards would instantly alert Dumbledore to his deeds..

Besom clutched tightly in his left hand, Harold approached the 16th-century timber-framed homestead of the Potters, before which a crowd of several hundred stood. Thankfully, he arrived at the end of Minister of Magic Cornelius Fudge's speech, doubtlessly self-glorification of his first two years in office.

Next came remarks from Rufus Scrimgeour, chief of the Ministry's aurors. A vocal critic of the "dark arts," Scrimgeour celebrated the retreat of true practitioners of magic after the presumed death of Lord Voldemort. He boasted of a "new era" in which wizard civilization embraced "honor" and "decency" and cast aside a millennium of "dark stigma."

"This is one of the fools who blames 'black magic' for the witch hunts," Harold hissed halfway through the spiel. "As if the Church would ever have allowed our powers to contest their crusades for God, Glory and Gold."

A witch or two at the edge of the crowd glanced in his direction, but dismissed Harold's remark to Halogi as figments of their imaginations. After another 10 minutes, Scrimgeour's political rally mercifully concluded following a token remembrance of James and Lily Potter tacked on at the end.

When Amelia Bones, Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, took the stage, Harold realized what might have once been an annual celebration of his parents now served as little more than a platform for ambitious politicians. He grit his teeth and suffered through another hour-and-a-quarter of gratuitous monologues before his target finally made her way to the stage.

Now two hours into the alleged remembrance service, Arabella Figg finally spoke words that remembered the Potters. The reject justified her presence by claiming close acquaintance with James and Lily during the final years of Lord Voldemort's revolution.

"And though I miss them dearly, their legacy lives on!" Figg declared. "They gave their lives so that we can all stand here as one! Families new and old. Wizards through whom magic flows strongly, and those who can touch the energies of this world only delicately…"

Harold reached into his mantle and drew forth his alder wand.

"Avada Kedavra!" he dictated as he shot a lethal bolt at the Dursleys' one time neighbor. As his hate-filled energy expelled Figg's soul upon contact, the boy sorcerer leapt upon his wizard broom and zoomed into the air.

"Glory to Slytherin!" Harold shouted. As he weaved through bursts of spellfire, the boy sorcerer pointed his wand back toward the sky over the Potter homestead and expelled a second bolt of poisonous-green energy. This spell did not kill, but rather fed off the fresh execution to form a spectral skull. When the skeletal visage opened its mouth to release a hissing phantom viper and the sound of a seven-squared death screams, the crowd collectively shrieked.

Satisfied, Heir Mortis used this bright distraction to vanish into the black East England night.

December 20

Manerium Mortis

"Are you ready, apprentice?" Vastator Mortis hissed as Harold entered the throne room a quarter hour before the clock struck midnight.

"Yes, my master," Harold returned in the serpent tongue with barely-contained excitement.

The dark lord smiled at his heir's enthusiasm and motioned for him to rise.

"The Wild Hunt is a sacred tradition now forgotten by all but the most devout of sorcerers," the Destroyer of Death spoke. "When I attended Hogwarts, heirs of even the most traditional families celebrated the twelve days of Yule with feasts, balls and galas. None remembered the time wizardkind rode proudly through the sky. And in spite of my teachings, it appears my vassals this side of Azkaban once more forsake their roots."

Harold snarled. It vexed him enough to learn from Quirrell how thoroughly Malfoy, Nott, Parkinson, Crabbe, Goyle, Avery and MacNair denied their lord. But to cast time-honored customs aside for mudblood festivities? Harold wondered how much instruction his future Hogwarts roommates would require, much less the rest of the Slytherin House.

"I do not doubt you will purify our progenitor's Hogwarts House," Vastator Mortis assuaged his apprentice's fears. "The might of your magic will attract acolytes like moths to firelight."

Harold's pale face glowed at his master's praise.

"I partook in my first hunt fifty years agone," the Heir of Slytherin reminisced. "While my associates retreated to their manors to indulge in gluttony, I patrolled my forefather's castle and removed all mudbloods that dared defile my Yuletide."

Harold marveled at how his master evaded detection with a vastly reduced student population and the ever-meddlesome Dumbledore roaming the halls. He wondered if he would be able to undermine the champion of white magicians so.

"This Yule, however, we shall take advantage of Dumbledore's possessiveness over Hogwarts," the dark lord proclaimed. "More than ever, traitors muddy their blood with filth and beasts, and then plague true wizards and witches with the abominations of their magic-forsaken unions. Recently, I have learned that a giant spawn now masquerades as Proviseur of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic."

Harold gaped in horror. France boasted one of the world's richest occult histories, with distinguished families such as the Blacks, Malfoys, Lestranges and Rosiers originating from those lands. For France's age-old school to have fallen so far…

"Never fear, my apprentice," Vastator Mortis assured as he rested his hand on the boy-sorcerer's shoulder. "When the clock strikes midnight, we hunt this defiler."

December 31

Beauxbatons Academy of Magic, Pyrenees Mountains, France

"Good evening, Olympe Maxime," Vastator Mortis greeted the eight-and-a-half-foot giant spawn that lumbered into the quarters traditionally reserved for Beauxbatons head teachers.

Mortis master and apprentice sat on the room's Renaissance-era bergère and canapé respectively, the only armchair and couch worthy of hosting the final scions of Peverell. Unlike the false proviseur, the two wizards honored their ancestors' early medieval Frank chapter with silk tunics and trousers overlaid with waist-length capes fastened at the shoulder by Peverell-insignia brooches.

When the half-breed brandished a wand, the elder Mortis disarmed it with a flick of his own. Harold grabbed the airborne redwood wand as it flew toward him.

"You would do well to keep your hands off of wizard property, beast," the Destroyer of Death rebuked. "Tell me, what is the wand core?

"Go to hell…" the giant spawn started before devolving into screeches of pain as Harold ignited the left side of its face with an Oculus Incende.

"I believe it is a dragon heartstring, my master," Harold answered as the half-breed rolled on the ground. "This wand has an explosiveness I don't feel in either Quirrell's or your own."

"Does it suit you better than that unicorn tail-hair wand?" the master inquired as Harold hurled the now-charging monstrosity across the room with a Depulso.

"Its power is raw and less attuned to life energies," Harold observed as he launched bone-snapping hexes at each of the half-breed's limbs. "But it doesn't resist dark spells at all. I think it actually feeds off aggression."

"A suitable combat wand perhaps," the Destroyer of Death recommended. "Quirrell's will continue to serve as your sorcery and ritual wand until you procure one from Ollivander."

Harold bowed his head in acknowledgment of his master's words.

"Filth!" the half-blind half-breed shouted as it dragged itself toward the Mortis duo. "Don't you dare defile my wand with your corrupt magic."

"Apprentice, show this creature the might of your magic," Vastator Mortis ordered.

"Crucio!" Harold shouted the torture curse at the giant spawn. Through will and power, the boy sorcerer poured a torrent of agony into the creature. But submerging another, particularly a half-giantess, in a flood of pain proved taxing. After 13 seconds, Harold lowered his new wand and raggedly gasped for air.

"Is that all?" his master questioned with disappointment.

"Crucio!" Harold restarted. The creature's moans and cries gave way to shrill shrieks this time, but the boy sorcerer unfortunately found himself exhausted once more after 10 seconds.

"Perhaps you do not believe this filth deserves to suffer," Vastator Mortis remarked. "You must feel pity and compassion for this spawn of bestiality, for your Cruciatus to be so insipid. Why, I reckon I have elicited louder screams from you in mere practice sessions."

"Crucio!" Harold roared in indignation. The creature at his mercy wailed at the new onslaught, but found respite after a mere seven seconds.

"Dumbledore would dance with delight if he could see you now," the Destroyer of Death sighed. "He will have an easy time molding you into the defender of all sorts of filth. Such as the one that left you at the doorstep of those muggles that enslaved you for nine years."

Harold looked at his master in surprise.

"You did not know?" the elder wizard laughed. "That night, your godfather came to take you to safety as soon as he found out what happened. But a giant spawn demanded to take you instead. And so, instead of growing in the luxuries of the House of Black, the great Harry Potter was abandoned on a muggle doorstep like yesterday's trash. No wonder you lived lower than an elf."

"Harry Potter?" the Beauxbatons half-breed wheezed in shock.

"Indeed," Vastator Mortis confirmed. "Your prophesied savior. Your Chosen One, delivered into bondage by the jealous henchman of Albus Dumbledore. But he escaped his chains, and he will now deliver his retribution on those who wronged him. Or so I thought."

"D-don't listen to him," the half-breed pleaded. "I can help you. All of Beauxbatons will protect you, provide a safe haven. Just help me break the spell this dark wizard put over the room, and rescue will arrive."

"Do you hear that?" Vastator Mortis addressed his apprentice. "She plans to hold you hostage. Prime you into Dumbledore's good little soldier."

"Fight him, Harry!" the Beauxbatons proviseur demanded. "You're meant for great things, things this interloper can't hold you back from."

"Hold him back?" Vastator Mortis laughed. "Oh no, you filthy half-breed. I am working to unleash his full potential. You want to muzzle him with muggle-serving codes and conduct, to make him too weak to seek the power that belongs to the wizard race."

"Ideas like his brought our kind to the brink of ruin," the half-giantess disputed.

"Our kind?" Harold whispered.

Silence reigned for a full minute.

"Your kind left me in the wilderness, to suffer the indignities at the hands of filth unworthy of licking my boots," Harold snarled. "How dare you pretend we are anything alike?"

"I…" the half-breed attempted.

"Crucio," Harold breathed.

Shrieks and wails filled the air as the half-breed twisted in torment. With each second, the boy sorcerer's hatred grew, and his curse crescendoed with it. The half-breed's anguish permeated through the room as its throes and spasms increased to a lightning-like intensity.

Harold watched the preternatural contortions with fascination, entranced by a display that would put a world-class stuntman to shame. He then beamed with pride when it sank in that he was the author of this performance. Delighted, the boy sorcerer increased the power of the torture curse.

The screams became hoarse and faint before fading into sporadic murmurs when the half-breed's mind broke three minutes in. Yet Harold still found pleasure in his artwork, cursing the vegetable until it quit polluting the air with its breath.

"It's dead," Harold heaved out, adrenaline dissipating with the pretender's life.

His master cackled with delight.

"Well done, my worthy apprentice," Vastator Mortis complimented in the serpent tongue. "Now, only one task remains."

The dark lord conjured a knife and handed it to Harold.

"Without Dumbledore's schemes, you would have been raised as a ward of the House of Black," the Destroyer of Death stated. "You will leave a message for our dear chief warlock. Carve the Black family motto into this creature's body."

"Always pure," Harold recalled the English translation.

Days later, a professor concerned by the proviseur's prolonged absence would find her bare corpse nailed to the ceiling of her quarters. And in spite of the professor's best efforts, neither he nor his colleagues could charm away the words carved onto their departed leader's face and torso.

TOUJOURS PUR

April 30

Dilapidated House, Little Hangleton

"Do you know what this place is?" Vastator Mortis hissed to his apprentice as the pair stood deep in the woods before the ruins of a once-impressive house.

"No," Harold responded. But even as he answered, he could sense very familiar energies about the place. The aura seemed much like that of his master, but it carried older imprints as well. If his instincts were correct, the building's ramshackle state belied a monumental history.

"Can you make no guess?" the dark lord pressed.

"Did the descendants of Slytherin live here?" Harold asked.

"Indeed," Vastator Mortis confirmed. "The House of Gaunt once presided over the Lancaster lands. Heirs of Slytherin and Peverell, they possessed power, might, and influence that the Blacks could only dream of. And their purity made mudbloods of even the Ministry's favorite families."

"What happened to them?" Harold wondered.

"As truly pure wizard families fell into extinction, the Gaunts found few options for marriage outside of their own extended family branches," Vastator Mortis explained. "By the mid-1800's, the Gaunt dynasty converged into a single branch. Tenebrosus Gaunt attempted to create many lines of descent, but six of his seven children were sons."

"They fought for their sister's hand in marriage," Harold realized.

"Marvolo Gaunt emerged the victor, but apparently found this to be the last inhabitable Gaunt property," the Destroyer of Death recounted. "He lived here for many years, until the Ministry harassed him and his son for hexing a muggle, and then imprisoned them in Azkaban for 'resisting arrest'."

Harold snarled viciously at the thought of Ministry dogs favoring filthy muggles over the Gaunts. "How dare they!"

"I suppose my dear mother would have never found the chance to frolic with her family's least favorite muggle otherwise," Vastator Mortis hissed. "The Gaunts returned to their home only as corpses. Fortunately, I require only my grandfather's bones this day. Wait here."

The final Heir of Slytherin proceeded into his ancestral house alone. Minutes later, he returned with a skeletal, right forearm hovering behind him.

"Now, we pay my dear father a visit," the dark lord declared as he stretched his hand out to his apprentice. Once Harold took it, both Mortises dematerialized as the elder transported across the town back to the manor grounds, where they materialized less than a minute later.

"I expect you to be capable of solitary dematerialization travel by the time you exit Hogwarts," Vastator Mortis informed his stumbling apprentice as they moved toward the Riddle graveyard.

Harold knew better than to question his master's command, but he couldn't imagine transfiguring himself and the possessions on his person into an immaterial state — much less restoring himself to perfect form.

"Severus Snape could do this mid-battle by the time he graduated, and so could your father from what he told me," Vastator Mortis informed. "You, who I blessed with a portion of my own power and soul, will not fall short of them."

"Yes master," Harold accepted as he picked up his besom in preparation for the coming ceremony.

Blinking away his dizziness, he followed his master to the stone memorial — a winged reaper that guarded the gravestone of Thomas, Mary, and Tom Riddle. He watched the dark lord open the tomb to extract a femur from the latter's coffin, which Harold took into his hands along with Marvolo Gaunt's forearm at his master's behest.

"Are you prepared?" Vastator Mortis questioned as engulfed a massive tungsten cauldron in blue flames with a flick of his wand.

"As I shall ever be. And I offer my own body if I fail you," Harold promised.

"I prefer it not come to that," the master remarked as he entrusted his wand to the boy sorcerer.

Harold felt his heart pound as he watched the lord of his house, his guardian, his last living family levitated above the boiling solution of unicorn horn and Nagini venom in water. With the cauldron constructed to superheat the liquids far past their boiling point, Harold could afford to err in the first minute of the restoration ritual before his master's host body became irreparable.

As his master gave him what would likely be a last look through Quirinus Quirrell's eyes, Harold sat on his besom and hovered into the air. A splash then reverberated through the graveyard as Vastator Mortis lowered himself into his potion.

Harold began counting the seconds as he flew 40 feet above the flaming cauldron in preparation for his first task. At the 28-second mark, he released the Gaunt and muggle bones from his right hand and guided them with his master's wand so they touched the flames and hit the solution simultaneously at the 30-second mark.

Immediately upon releasing his influence over the bones, Harold drew his master's wand diagonally across his right wrist. Letting the blood flow from his open vessels, particularly his radial artery, Harold dropped his vital fluid into the cauldron for a full 30 seconds. Though simple muggle would find themselves succumbing to unconsciousness after such a loss, the boy sorcerer fed on the black energies of Manor Mortis for sustenance and the strength to cauterize his wound. And from the ensuing fiery pain, Harold found the power for his final task.

Hissing fervently, he called upon the forces of the manor, his familiar that resided within, and the serpent power of his master's wand to deliver the astral of Quirinus Quirrell. Fortunately, his practice summoning this particular spirit paid off, and he drew the defiant astral to the graveyard within a half minute.

"It's your lucky day, professor. You'll rejoin magic in a few short minutes," Harold encouraged the ornery astral before reciting an old Haitian chant.

The ancient power dragged the screaming spirit of Quirinus Quirrell into the cauldron, submerging it exactly one minute and forty-five seconds after Harold's master had entered. The boy sorcerer, satisfied that the restoration reaction now possessed the necessary activation energy, flew down to the ground and to await the rebirth.

Five-and-a-quarter minutes later, the cauldron violently exploded. Harold's safe distance and the power of his Mantle of Darkness allowed him to avoid injury. However, to his surprise, the boy sorcerer soon found himself shivering within his mantle as a glacial chill descended upon the graveyard.

Inky waves of darkness converged upon a levitating ash-white figure. As Harold's master assumed humanoid shape, the shadows enveloping him solidified into robes befitting history's greatest dark lord. Power like Harold had never before felt emanated from this supreme sorcerer. On the verge of weeping in joy and awe, the boy sorcerer prostrated himself before the one wizard to return fully from the abyss of destruction.

Verily, Lord Voldemort had become the Destroyer of Death.