THE PROLOGUE

October 31, 9 years after Godric's Hollow

4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey

"Where's the pie, freak!" a 10-year-old blond growled at the small, dark-haired boy waiting on his family.

"Now, now, Diddykins," an elegant, brunette woman soothed her son. "Potter is waiting for the proper moment to serve dessert." She nodded to her right, as the smartly-dressed man at the head of the table took the last few bites of his meal.

"Yes, there's only so much motor coordination the spawn of drunkards can exhibit," sneered the head of the household.

"More the fault of its father, lousy loafer that he was," the woman amended her husband's statement as he completed his meal. "And if you wait any longer, our pie will be as rotten as your blood," she directed at the boy servant.

The four-foot boy bowed his head and scampered to the oven to bring out a perfectly warm pumpkin pie. Though he should have relished the smell, a rich, buttery, sweet scent that told him the dish was cooked to the Dursleys' standards, it only reminded him of how utterly alone he was.

Of how his parents, James and Lily Potter, died drunk in a car crash that very evening nine years before, abandoning him to three people who made his existence a never-ending nightmare.

So lost in thought was the Potter boy that he forgot to put on mittens before retrieving the dish. Loosing a hiss of pain, he barely managed to keep hold of the glass baking dish as his palms reddened from the blistering heat. The boy nevertheless persisted and brought the pie to a rest on top of the stove. He then rushed to the sink and plunged his hands beneath a rush of ice-cold water.

"What's taking so long, boy!" the Dursley man demanded.

"Did you get lost in the oven, Potty?" the Dursley son jeered. "Will we be having you for dessert now too?"

A bolt of anger coursed through the servant boy, and the floor trembled as if a clap of thunder resounded through the house. For despite his diminutive stature, the scorned Potter carried a power within him far greater than the picture of prosperity the Dursley family lorded in their community.

And ever since Vastator Mortis began visiting his dreams two years ago to the day, the Potter boy knew so. Knew, and waited for the day he would be strong enough to finally break free of his hateful bloodkin. Oh, how he thirsted the day he would no longer have to call the two adults who loathed him most "sir" and "ma'am."

"Soon," Vastator had promised just before Potter woke up at the crack of dawn that very day. "Very soon."

"Where–just bring the pie, Potter," the Dursley woman demanded, though Potter could detect a faint tremble in her voice.

Invigorated, Potter seized the pie dish with both hands, the blistering heat of a few seconds ago but a distant memory. He confidently set the pie in the middle of the table, knowing that Dudley – greedy, "growing" boy that he was – would immediately reach for the pie before his own father cut a slice.

But Dudley, for all his popularity and posture among his peers, did not possess true power. Thus, St. Gregory's favorite jock shrieked when his hands made contact with the dish. Potter barely restrained a smile as the captain of "Surrey's Squires" hopped around like a wounded bunny while wailing like a banshee.

"Freak!" Dudley's father growled as he rose from his chair. "What have you done to my son?"

The "freak" demurely bowed his head as the Dursley house head's muscles rippled underneath his dress shirt.

"Honey, I'm sure it didn't mean to harm our son," the Dursley woman attempted to placate her husband as the man clenched his fist.

"So long as you insist on keeping that witch-spawn near our son, I will do everything in my power to curb his evil," the Dursley man declared.

"It's the father's blood!" his wife responded sharply.

"I'm sorry, Tunia," the Dursley man apologized softly as he sat and rubbed his wife's arm.

"Scarhead!" Dudley yelled out with rage once he regained control of his hands. "You tried to kill me!"

Potter couldn't help but raise his brows in surprise. Although every aspect of his life would be better if his chief tormentor didn't wake up one morning, he thought it madness to be accused of attempted murder by way of a slightly-hot baking dish.

"You're why I can't even go out with my friends on Halloween, and now you try to kill me!" Dudley raged. "Freak! I wish you died with your stupid parents! I don't know why Mommy keeps you around…but it ends now!"

Dudley then seized the pie-cutting knife from the table and charged at Potter.

"Dudley!" the Dursley woman cried out as her son charged the "freak."

However, years of being harrassed and hunted by Dudley and his gang honed Potter's dexterity and reflexes to levels beyond that of any boy in the neighborhood. And so the freak easily slid past Dudley's initial stab, ducked under the slash at his neck, and cartwheeled away from the kick meant to break his jaw.

"Stop this!" the Dursley woman shouted.

Dudley paid no attention to his mother, choosing instead to double the speed of his assault. Yet in spite of the taller boy's greater reach and growing ruthlessness, Potter still outpaced his nemesis.

"Is that your best, Diddykins?" Potter taunted. "Can't do anything without Piers, can you?"

Roaring with rage, Dudley hurled himself at the subject of his hate. Potter, taken aback by the reckless maneuver, crashed into the floor with his four-foot-eight cousin atop him. Ocean-blue eyes locked with his tormentor's chestnut brown, Potter evaded a series of stabs and slashes with preternatural anticipation.

"Stop!" Dudley's mother shrieked.

Momentarily flinching at the volume of Ma'am's voice, an intensity of sound that presaged the harshest of punishments, Potter reacted too late to a stab at his neck. Only barely did he manage to intercept the blow with his left clavicle.

"Ahhh!" Potter cried out as piercing pain pulsated from his now-chipped collarbone.

The wounded boy blinked fiercely as flashing red light brighter than his blood threatened to submerge him into unconsciousness. For if he gave in, the fiend above him would ensure he never woke. And his dead body would doubtlessly become a dance floor for Dudley. So instead, Potter stared into the eyes of the boy who hated him so much. A boy, who in the faintest of memories, once played with him, laughed with him, before deciding to find joy in his misery.

Dudley flinched despite having all but won the fight. The blond's hand wavered as he drew the knife above his head, blade angled to descend into Potter's throat.

The freak deserves it…he's the reason for everything bad in my life, Potter heard Dudley declare, even though his mouth remained fixed in a snarl. He deserves the pain. And…and he should join his parents tonight. The freaks who made Mommy sad! I'm doing everyone a favor by taking him out! Out like the trash he is!"

Yet even those words did not prepare Potter for the image that flashed through his mind. Of his body, slack and limp, shoved into a trash bag. Crumpled until the black laces could be tied. The white bag then tossed into the dumpster, which would be emptied into a garbage truck, driven away to be tossed into a dirt heap in some fetid wasteland while Dudley's gang clapped and hooted…

"No!" Potter bellowed as years' worth of rage exploded from within him. After all he suffered, all he endured, he would never see himself thrown away like rotten milk. He was a person, a living being, and he had not endured a life of servitude and mockery to be tossed out like a broken toy.

So consumed was Potter by his fury that he did not feel the house quake, hear the crash of toppling decor, or witness the ruination of the Dursleys' beloved furniture. He did, however, see the mighty Dudley sprawled on the ground in front of him. And as Potter rose to his feet, wounded collarbone a mere prickling nuisance, he relished the terror that radiated from his tormentor's wide eyes.

"No, no, get away! Get away!" Dudley squealed as he clumsily scooted himself back on wobbly arms.

"Why?" Potter whispered coolly, basking in the sight before him. Dudley. Defeated. Scared.

"Y–you can't hurt me," Dudley whimpered as his bloody knife was shattered under the foot of his former victim.

"Why?" Potter repeated.

"He's family," Dudley's mother asserted in a stern voice. Or rather, an attempt at one.

"You were waiting for him to kill me," Potter growled as a harsh wind began to whip through the house. "You would have thrown me into the dumpster. Not even given me a funeral!"

"I've done everything you've wanted! Cooked, cleaned, gardened, broke my back in whatever way you asked!" Potter raged above the now howling gale. "Did your son's school work while he makes my life a living hell! I don't even get to go to school myself, make any friends, just so your pig of a son can feel special. You keep me in a cupboard, out of sight, out of mind whenever I'm not slaving away or entertaining you with screams. And you would have thrown me out like an empty yogurt tub!"

"Control yourself, boy," the Dursley father ordered as he rose to his feet with clenched fists.

"I nearly died!" Potter roared as a thunderous boom sounded through the house. All around the diminutive boy, surfaces cracked, decor shattered, and air sparked.

"I would never let you die," the Dursley woman claimed in a shaky, half-breathless voice. "You…you are my sister's son."

"You hate her! You hate me! You make this day as miserable as you can so I wish I burnt with her!" Potter thundered as all nearby light-fixtures exploded and the cracked dining table splintered to bits.

"Aah!" the Dursley woman cried out, even as her husband dove to shield her as best he could.

Potter smiled as blood pooled over the hateful man's ever-so perfect white shirt. The years of beatings were almost worth seeing the prim-and-proper business man slumped on the floor, unconscious and shallow in breath.

"You can't do this!" the Dursley woman hollered as she knelt over her husband. "You're supposed to protect us! Protect us from the villains who killed my sister…"

"The Potters died in a car crash," Potter sneered at the trembling woman.

"I lied!" the Dursley woman cried out. "I spared you from the truth! They were killed nine years ago by evil forces of your kind. You were given to us to be hidden. In turn, your power shields this place. Protects us all from those who would destroy us!"

"You sat and watched as your son tried to kill me," Potter reminded as he delivered as strong a kick as he could to Dudley's nether regions. The blond boy's shrieks of pain did not disappoint.

"He wouldn't have. He couldn't have. But you can't hurt him. He needs you!" the Dursley woman insisted.

"Is that why he and his gang hunt me every chance they get?" Potter asked as he stomped on Dudley's rib cage, smiling as he felt at least two bones snap. "Beat me with sticks? Try to stone me? Punch and kick me till I hack blood? Hold me under water until I choke on it?"

"They've never hurt you," the Dursley woman whispered. "Not like you're hurting my son."

"I hate him," Potter declared as he drove his right sole down on Dudley's left forearm, snapping it. Relishing in his tormentor's tears, Potter used his left foot to crush Dudley's right shoulder.

"Stop!" the Dursley woman wailed. "Vernon! Vernon, wake up!"

The next time he met Vastator in his dreams, Potter would have to ask why his powers had never worked for him as well as they did now. If he'd been able to blow the Dursleys off their feet, tear apart their precious house, why had this never happened all the other times he had been beaten bloody? Why had he been limited to parlor tricks for all these years?

"I hate you! I hate your family! I hate this town! I hate everyone!" Potter raged as he stomped on Dudley's left collarbone. The bawling wretch instantly slumped into unconsciousness.

"Stop!" the Dursley woman shouted. "You don't know what you're saying."

"I've tried to be good," Potter continued. "I've tried to do everything right. But you always say the worst things about me, you blame everything bad Dudley does on me, and you make everyone hate me! And you lock me away and shut me up so no one knows the truth!"

"I…I…" the Dursley woman stuttered.

"I wish we never met!" Potter yelled. "I wish it was you who died nine years ago. You, your husband, and Dudley!"

"Potter, stop!" the Dursley woman begged.

"I wish I was never brought to this house!" Potter bellowed. "I'd rather live anywhere but here!"

An arctic chill immediately descended upon the house while a tearing-like sound echoed through the dwelling. All surrounding shadows simultaneously enlarged and darkened in intensity, forming a veil-like fog about Potter and the Dursleys.

"Harry Potter," a baritone rasp resounded from the darkness all around them. "I have found you at last."

"No, no, no," the Dursley woman moaned. "Dum–Dumbledore…" she stuttered before a rush of power hurled her against the wall and pinned her several feet off the ground.

"Will not stop me from taking what is mine, worthless muggle," the disembodied voice derided the sputtering woman.

"H–Ha–Harry!" the Dursley woman choked out Potter's given name.

"You dare speak his name?" the entity rebuked as a glacial gale ripped through the house. "You address your better so cavalierly?"

"H–he is m–my nephew…" the Dursley woman stammered through chattering teeth.

"Do not attempt to claim relation to him, filth!" the darkness denounced. "I have witnessed your base actions against my Harold. They will never be forgotten, never forgiven."

"Vastator Mortis?" Harry gasped the name of the one person who called him Harold.

"You must abscond from this place with haste," Vastator Mortis addressed Harry. "I fear it will not be much longer before Albus Dumbledore appears in an attempt to corral you back into slavery."

Harry flinched at that name. He knew very little, but from what Vastator told him, this Dumbledore personally gave him to the hateful Dursleys because of his powers – and the lengths the Dursleys would go to suppress them.

"Where do I go?" Harry queried desperately.

"Follow me," Vastator Mortis answered as his wraithlike presence withdrew from the house, leaving the Dursley woman to crumple to the floor.

Unwilling to see his first waking contact with Vastator end so abruptly, Harry instantly rushed toward the front door, determined to follow whatever trace he could sense of the icy yet familiar presence.

"Stop!" the Dursley woman called out. "You…you can't leave. I–we haven't treated you right, this I know. But we can change. We can be a family! We…we can enroll you in St. Gregory alongside Dudley if you like. Just d—don't go with t-the destroyer."

Harry faltered for a second. But only for a second.

"Vastator's the only one who has been good to me," Harry replied without turning to look at the shrew who claimed to be his mother's sister. "Goodbye, Petunia, and good riddance."

Harry then opened the door to freedom, and sprinted into the night.

While leaving "home" would cause most children to shiver with terror, Harry felt buoyant strength build within him the further he ran away from that cursed place. Each breath of cool, crisp air felt as invigorating as the leftovers of a Christmas meal.

Exalting with joy, Harry sprinted down the sidewalks after Vastator, not caring for the fact he ran barefoot. He paid no mind to the costumed figures patrolling the streets for sweets. He did not know where Vastator was leading him, nor did he care. For the first time in his memory, he was free from the house that had been his prison. Free from the unyielding control placed on him by the dreadful Dursleys. Free to run outside, be outside, without Petunia commanding his every action.

And so, as Harry followed his frigid benefactor, he swore to himself that he would never be held captive by inferior beings again.

"Harry," a somber voice rang through the night.

"Who are you?" Harry challenged, stifling the spike of fear his instincts supplied him. For in addition to the ethereal power radiating through the air, Harry noticed an eerie silence and lack of light on the street he now stood.

"Your protector," the voice replied with an ancient timbre.

"Then where have you been all these years?" Harry accused, knowing this person was not Vastator. In fact, he could barely sense his true protector, now that this new presence decided to interfere.

"Life has not been kind to you," the new voice acknowledged. "But though you may doubt my words, there is no place safer for you than living at home with your family."

"They are not my family!" Harry thundered.

"The blood that binds you…" the voice tried.

"Is nothing to me!" Harry roared. "I will never go back to that prison," he declared as a fierce gale howled through the street, bending all in its path not firmly rooted in the earth.

"Please, my dear boy…"

"You're him, aren't you," Harry identified. "Albus Dumbledore."

Suddenly, a towering man with a flowing head and beard of silver hair shimmered into existence. His green-gold eyes glowed with knowledge and experience seemingly beyond his venerable years, as if he were a deity of old assuming mortal form.

But Harry refused to be cowed by the violet-robed wizard.

"You kept me there!" Harry bellowed as the stormy wind raged on, now shaking the trees in the vicinity. "You locked me in hell!"

"I understand your anger, far more than you believe," Dumbledore intoned with a grave dip of his head. "But the true hell is not what lies behind you, but what waits ahead if you leave this place."

"Nothing can be worse than those…muggles!" Harry declared. "They hate me for who I am. Because I'm better! Stronger! I hate them, and I wish they would die!"

The reminder that he had simply walked away from the muggles who tried to kill him and send him to a landfill lit a furnace of rage within him. Vaguely, Harry detected a sharp scent of ozone permeating around him.

"If it is so, then allow me to provide you refuge," Dumbledore proffered.

"No, you'll just send me back to them!" Harry hotly rejected. "Just because I don't go to school doesn't mean I'm stupid!"

"You are your mother's son, and she was the most brilliant witch I had the honor of knowing," Dumbledore stated reverently. "I see now I was wrong to keep you from your heritage, from your power. I had sought to shelter you, but perhaps it is best you begin to prepare."

"Prepare for what?" Harry spat out, but not without a tremor of curiosity.

"There is a war brewing in the world of wizards," Dumbledore answered. "An enemy your mother defeated is regaining power, and when he does, he will seek vengeance on all who oppose his imperial ambitions."

"Imperial?" Harry wondered at the Star Wars-esque description of Dumbledore's enemy.

"He believes wizardkind should dominate the world and relegate those born without magic to eternal servitude," Dumbledore explained. "To accomplish this, he seeks to exterminate all wizards who hold sympathy towards the non-magical, or worse yet in his view, are born from them."

"I'm not born from non-magicals," Harry pointed out. "You just said my mother was the most gifted witch you ever met. And I'll bet the clothes on my back that my father was a wizard too, given how much those wretched muggles slandered him."

Dumbledore's face remained stoic, but Harry sensed a deep dismay radiate from the senior wizard.

"Do eight billion people deserve to be condemned to a lifetime of slavery and have their children suffer to the same fate for generations to come?" Dumbledore asked.

"It's what they did to me," Harry bit out. "And I'll bet they'd do it to everyone with magic if they could get their filthy hands on them."

"Not all muggles are like the Dursleys," Dumbledore stated somberly.

"Funny enough, I've never met a muggle who disagreed with their treatment of me," Harry countered. "Every last one of Dudley's friends laughed at how miserable my life was, and every last adult in this magic-forsaken neighborhood sings the Dursleys' praises. So if this enemy of yours wants to make war on those people, then he can have at it!"

"Do you truly wish what you've suffered upon all the innocent…" Dumbledore started.

"They're not innocent!" Harry cried out as the raging winds around him whipped into a miniature tornado. "They beat me bloody to the point I thought I'd die sometimes. They tried to keep me as dumb as possible, telling everyone I had a mental disease so I couldn't go to school. They called me freak, trash, demon-spawn! They made my life hell on earth, and I wish the same on every last one of them!"

With rueful sigh, Dumbledore raised a hand to the sky and instantly stilled the winds whirling about them.

"I may not be able to convince you today, but there is value in every life," the senior wizard declared. "One day, you'll come to see that. But for now, please come with me so I may take you to safety."

"You just want to 'prepare' me to be your soldier," Harry retorted. "You want me to fight this so-called enemy of yours when he comes back. Well, why don't you do it yourself?"

"Few wizards possess the powers and potential that you do, my boy," Dumbledore answered. "Voldemort knew that, which is why he tried to kill you nine years ago," he pronounced while training his golden gaze on the red, lightning-bolt shaped scar just above his right eyebrow.

"That is no ordinary scar," Dumbledore continued. "No, it is the mark of the curse Voldemort cast on you when you were just one year old. A curse he meant to rip your soul out of your body while you lay defenseless in a cradle. His sorcery proved too wicked for even him to control that night, and his actions cost him dearly. But when he regains his might, the first thing he will do is attempt to kill you."

"A most fallacious assumption," a familiar disembodied voice pierced through the air.

"Vastator!" Harry called out with joy and relief.

"The Destroyer?" Dumbledore remarked frostily, the night air chilling as he did so.

"Of Death, for your viewing pleasure," Vastator Mortis responded mockingly.

"If you are so confident in your immortality, why not manifest so we may have a conversation face to face?" Dumbledore challenged.

"Why should I do that, when you have already lost the battle, old fool?" Vastator sniped from all surrounding shadows.

"Changed your mind about killing the last of the Potter line?" Dumbledore returned evenly.

"I provide all true wizards the opportunity to fight for their rights," Vastator rejoined. "One such as young Harold has the promise of assistance and protection so long as he remains true of heart."

"Does one such as you know how to keep a promise, Voldemort?" Dumbledore derided.

"Voldemort?" Harry gasped.

"An old name of an old self," Vastator dismissed. "It is true that once, I feared the threat you might one day pose. But I confronted that fear and destroyed it. Now, I offer to help you do the same."

"I–I don't fear anything," Harry denied.

"Do you not?" Vastator said. "Do you not wonder why your might so suddenly manifested itself today, when the muggle filth tormented and tortured you for years?"

Harry answered with silence.

"You saw what that boy intended to do with you," Vastator continued. "You would have been completely erased from this world. Unmourned. Unmissed. Unremembered. For all you have survived, your struggles would have been less significant than a speck of dust."

Harry trembled with rage.

"He seeks to bind you to your worst experiences, to shackle you with pain and rage," Dumbledore interjected passionately. "You are stronger than this Harry, worth far more than he could ever offer, much less provide."

"Harold," the wizard boy declared.

Dumbledore deflated.

"Vastator Mortis, Voldemort, I don't care what name he goes by," Harold asserted. "I care that he's the only wizard who cares about me. You and whoever you work with left me to rotten muggles, while he freed me from them."

"Oh, and you mentioned something about promises?" Harold added. "This morning, he told me I would be free of the filth 'very soon.' And here I am."

"Voldemort cares for no one but himself," Dumbledore argued. "He will pretend to aid you only so long as it suits his interests. But the moment you are not in alignment with him, you will face his fury. And it is a fate few are known to survive."

"Better than fighting for muggles," Harold rejoined bitterly.

"Magic is might," Vastator approved.

"I cannot in good conscience let you take the boy," Dumbledore stated gravely. "You may beguile him now, but your evil is one few can stomach – even among your former followers."

"They are and will always be mine!" Vastator hissed in indignation.

"Voldemort sees only two types of people in the world – those he wishes to possess, and those he wishes to persecute," Dumbledore said to Harold. "He fancies himself a god, and wishes to make the world his worshippers. The only difference he would leave for us is in how low we bow."

"Never fear, Dumbledore," Vastator sneered. "I'd rather you feed worms than strain your feeble neck."

"At least my neck is my own," Dumbledore commented mildly. "Can you say the same, Tom?"

Harold didn't quite understand the senior wizard's meaning, but he felt a glacial spike of indignation skewer through his brain. As if someone drove a drill into his forehead, particularly a point above his right eyebrow…

"The boy will resent you if you take him with you now," Vastator rasped. "He will see it as another prison, and will fight you until he kills you or you kill him."

"It will not come to that," Dumbledore determined.

"It does not need to," Vastator seemingly agreed. "I propose a compromise."

Harold didn't like the sound of his fate being bargained over, but he had to concede that the disputing wizards were far more powerful and knowledgeable than himself.

"I have maintained contact with Harold for two years," Vastator revealed to Dumbledore. "If the boy were to come with me and learn the ways of sorcery for three years, that would allow him five years of instruction at your precious school. Evenly balanced."

"And I would barter this young man's life in such a fashion, why?" Dumbledore questioned incredulously.

"I suspect he would rather die than go with you," Vastator replied bluntly. "And I think we can both agree that is a less than desirable outcome of this fine Samhain."

"Yes," Dumbledore affirmed.

"Do you hold such little faith in your powers of persuasion?" Vastator taunted. "You do not believe you will be able to convince the boy to 'see the light' with five years under your roof?"

"What assurance do I have that you would not simply strike him down the moment you think he is going astray?" Dumbledore challenged.

"Oh Albus, I think you know exactly why, even with your limited understanding of the finer points of sorcery," Vastator returned.

"He will commence his education at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, founded by Godric Gryffindor, Rowena Ravenclaw, Helga Hufflepuff and Salazar Slytherin, one month after he turns thirteen?" Dumbledore pressed.

"You will leave him to complete five years of education at this very Hogwarts, or under me for the equivalent number of years if this Hogwarts were to for some reason close or his life were to come under threat?" the senior wizard continued. "You will not interfere with his living arrangements during these five years? You will put him under no oath or threat of loyalty until he has completed this education? And he will only serve you if he chooses to do so of uninfluenced free will after his education?"

"Do you agree to this, Harold?" Vastator included him in the conversation about his own fate.

"If I never have to share a house with a filthy muggle again," Harold growled. He knew he should press for more assurances, but Dumbledore was loath to agree to even allowing him three years with Vastator. And several remarks from the conversation implied that a direct duel between the two may go Dumbledore's way, which would trap him with the muggle apologist for life.

Dumbledore dipped his head with sadness, but he agreed. "If you wish it, it will be so."

"This looks like the best I'll get, so I agree if you're willing to honor this," Harold directed at the silver-haired wizard.

"Shall we vow on it?" Dumbledore suggested while extending his right arm.

Drawing in a deep breath, Harold walked over to the senior wizard and extended his matching appendage. Dumbledore then proceeded to clasp their forearms together as if there was not a two-and-a-half foot disparity in height between them. Not that Harold noticed with the golden bands of energy that wrapped around their united arms.

As much as he resented Dumbledore's viewpoints, Harold could not deny the sheer power the wizard possessed. And he suspected he only felt a fraction of it.

"If you are quite done," the night air hissed in Vastator's voice.

"It would appear for now, I am," Dumbledore spoke with a heavy tone. "But should you be in need, do not hesitate to call for help. My aid and protection can extend far beyond Hogwarts, if you come to feel the need for it."

Harold was tempted to snort, but decided to refrain from such a petty action – if only out of concern that Dumbledore may decide to renege on his promises. Instead, he simply walked away from the violet-robed wizard and toward the shadows where Vastator's presence seemed thickest.

And as the very darkness wrapped him in an icy embrace, Harold saw only the light of freedom that his mentor promised and delivered.