AN: Let's begin. The dawn of a new journey, the path paved by the scraps of travellers gone, journeys lost.

I reskinned the prologue from A Darker Shade of Magic again, but this time, the story is completely different, so tell me what you think of this.

Happy reading!

Time: Halloween, when Rose Potter is Two Years Old

Voldemort easily blended into the Muggle world tonight, not even caring to hide his hideous appearance with the charms he usually did whenever going out on a stealth mission... which was not very often, he had to admit.

But he found himself not particularly caring tonight.

He sneered at the passing Muggles who 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed at his 'costume', making him twitch in anger, his sneer intensifying until Severus would be proud of him. He had to hand it to that greasy bat, apart from bootlicking and potions, the art of sneering was something the man could boast of mastering. Well, perhaps Voldemort might have been jealous of the way the Potions master made his robes billow like a bat, too, but he had to restrain himself from copying him. No, however much he liked the idea, it just wouldn't do to copy someone beneath him.

No, he thought idly, suppressing the urge to whip out his wand and torture the Muggle couple who passed him, so tooth rottingly sweet and ignorant.

Foolish Muggles, so ignorant of their own inferiority.

He caught a reflection of familiar red eyes staring back at him from the gleaming silver body of one of those primitive Muggle rides parked on the sidewalk, smiling at the reflection.

To anyone else, the sight of Voldemort smiling to his reflection would have been a nightmare, but the Dark Lord was on cloud nine, feeling like nothing in the mortal world could even begin to graze the extent of his happiness.

His slit-like pupils were almost dilated- almost- high on a rush of adrenaline that he had not thought himself even capable of anymore. His pale, sickly skin reflected the yellow streetlights, which cast a golden glow about him, gilded skin and a yellow-toothed, lipless smile- Gryffindor colours, but he found himself not minding it all that much. Sharp shadows cast across his abnormal features, an absent nose and flared nostrils set square right above a lipless mouth cracked at the corners, and a silent breeze ruffled his black robes.

Drawing his attention back to the gilded Muggles milling about underneath the golden light, the Dark Lord could not help but regard them with the utmost contempt.

If it was one thing that Voldemort could respect above all else, it was knowledge. For, knowledge was power.

But above all, knowledge and reason were what made them human, superior to all else. The tool that their ancestors had used to carve out their own paths, the tool which Salazar Slytherin prided in, encouraged his successors to sharpen.

And these Muggles, knew nothing of reason. They were mindless sheep, though the wizarding world could not boast of being any better. They were beasts, prey, for the humans to hunt.

They were subhuman. Caricatures of nature, caught between beast and man, a missing link, an abomination, a stillbirth child locked in the womb of evolution. Incomplete.

And Voldemort, despite being twisted beyond all recognition, his soul torn and mutilated, was the most human of them all. He was the closest to completion, the most perfect- despite the self-mutilations he had inflicted upon himself.

The fool, Dumbledore, would define humanity as something else, and would say that the main objective of reason was to show mercy, but Voldemort knew better.

Nature had given man reason to hunt with, and man had used it for himself, like he was meant to- to become better than Nature had intended, to become Masters of the world, that was humanity's destiny, bound in their very own genome, in every cell of their body.

Voldemort could respect Dumbledore's decision to use his reason for his own ideals, and he followed suit. It was just a bad incident that their ideals collided with each other.

He sighed, raising a slender arm to run his clawed, crooked fingers along his bald head, enjoying his own, perfect smoothness. Being bald and hairless was another defining aspect of humanity, and Voldemort prided himself in being the most perfect of them all.

After all, humanity was created in God's image, and he strived to be as close to God as could be, even going so far as to misuse His gifts to get closer, not caring that he was going against Him in the first place. That was his destiny, the flight of death.

Not that Voldemort believed in shit like that, of course. That was bull; he just liked the idea of theology, divinity and destiny because of its poetic nature- how well it fits together and how inspiring it was to the uneducated, the ever-curious academic in his heart shining through his hardened, monstrous exterior.

Where was he before he went off into an evil, villainous monologue?

Right.

Today, he would take a big step towards his ambition of world domination by removing possibly the biggest threat to his reign. The biggest, and, ironically, the smallest and the most helpless threat, at the same time.

He breathed in deeply, allowing himself to relish the moment despite the vermin crawling all around him, sighing as he raised his hand and embraced the beautiful night sky, facing upwards. His long, dark flowing robes billowed in the soft wind, creating a faint rustle like the dead leaves of a black forest in a faint breeze. Wisps of grey clouds flitted across the dark night sky like ancient ghosts dancing across shadows, the pinpricks of starlight the only light available tonight, it being the new moon. No moon, which meant no light for the day-dwellers to feel safe in when night fell, and the predators hunted.

The autumn wind was cold and biting upon his hairless, naked skin, slightly irritating to his lungs as well, but it only served to invigorate him further, making his swirling, uncontrollable magic beat against the cage of his skin in a desperate bid to escape- a call that was answered with a harmonious hum of his wand.

"Patience, my friend." He told the most faithful of his friends. He was in no hurry tonight. Tonight, the predator did not need to hunt. He could take his time.

Sighing softly to himself, he trudged on, his body heavy with exhaustion that came with weeks of no sleep, something that only his improved body could allow, yet his mind remained lively. His footsteps heavy on the concrete pavement, his muscles screaming in protest even as his joints groaned loudly, his determination and his overwhelming magical power their only nourishment.

The evening of Samhain, or Halloween, as the ignorant Muggles called it, had always been special. The night when the veil between life and death thinned, allowing ghosts and spirits to walk the world once more, the night when Dark magic was at its most potent, when magical rituals for fertility were performed. Ironical, that death should beget life, yet nature worked in strange ways and he should know, being as intimate with magic as he was.

The sun had set an hour ago, yet the dark night sky remained alight, burning with the slight glow of the festive Muggles beneath, unknowing of the Monster that walked in their midst. But that was okay; today, the monster was not looking for small prey; rather, he had one specific, big fish in mind.

The wind blew through the streets, slightly chilly, reminding everyone that winter was near, rattling the bones of the skeletons laid bare in the yards and flickering the flames of the jack o' lanterns, sitting by doors like they had come alive. The streets were dusty, making him feel slightly thankful for the cleaning charms sewn into his long, dark robes that trailed on the ground behind him. The October evening was slightly stuffy, but Voldemort could not bring himself to care about the bad weather.

Nothing short of taking an asteroid to the face could spoil his mood tonight.

The children moved trick-o-treating from one door to another, dressed in garish garb of all sorts and colours, even some little witches and wizards being spotted by the Dark Lord's keen, sweeping eyes. Milling across the street were little pointed hats, and small primitive versions of the toy brooms Pureblood children played with, accompanied by a little sack for candies. They were accompanied by little aspiring vampires and werewolves, Frankenstein and ghouls, and a host of other mundane characters he couldn't identify, all of them barely taller than his knee.

Feeling merciful, and just in case some higher power existed who blessed good deeds with good luck, Voldemort beckoned them near, the cloying excitement of Halloween and the rush of sugar in their blood inhibiting the foolish children's fears and instincts, allowing them to approach him quite easily.

Laughing at their stupidity but not finding fault with their age, the Dark Lord put his hand in the long, loose sleeves of his robes, making a show of wandlessly summoning some chocolate bars and dropping them into the bucket held by one child.

The children laughed at the trick, but Voldemort found himself smiling at their silly, foolish laughter, finding a twisted sense of humour in how ignorant they were of how close Lady Death lurked.

No, don't worry, he was evil, but not that evil. The chocolate bars were perfectly safe, after all, children, even of his prey, were precious. They would grow up to restock the population, and everything had its place in the ecosystem, even pebbles by the riverside.

Laughing and cheering, the children went away, allowing Voldemort to continue his silent meditations until he finally reached the particular house he had been looking for, hidden from the eyes of everyone else by a thick almost tangible layer of advanced magic, the divine energy woven layers upon layers in a thick sheet that hung thick upon the House, protective and aggressive.

Perhaps he had helped those children earlier out of some lingering dregs of guilt in some dark corner of his mind at spilling the innocent blood of Pureblood infants. Their parents? Not so much.

But luckily for the parents in question, they had been called away by the order to stop a raid he had set up for the very purpose of serving as a distraction. If they got killed there, well, it could not be helped. He wouldn't regret it either, one less thorn in his side.

Smiling genuinely at the thought of victory, so close that he could almost taste it on his lips, the Dark lord pushed the main gate open noiselessly, his hand sliding into his sleeve, his fingers curling around the familiar, comforting wood of his phoenix feather wand, just in case.

The small wrought iron gate swung open noiselessly on rusted hinges, Voldemort stepped inside, feeling the thick magic of the Fidelius charm wash over him like he was stepping through a fine silk curtain. Maybe he would have paid some more note to the advanced ward if the situation had been otherwise. However, he paid it no heed as he made his way up the small, meandering path that wove through the small front yard, lined by small, dainty bushes and leading to an unassuming door. The gravel underneath his bare feet crunched as he made his way up to the door, not even trying to keep quiet.

However, just as the rat had said, nothing came to surprise him, making him laugh at how easy it was. He would probably go back and torture the rat some more for ratting out his friends so easily, lest he should try to do the same to him, not that he cared. It was not as if the rat had any sensitive information about him.

The first layer of defence consisted of the Fidelius charm, which had been bypassed laughably easily. No nasty surprises had come up to greet him, though Voldemort guessed that it was to be expected. It was notoriously difficult to maintain, let alone modify, a ward as advanced as the Fidelius for an indefinite amount of time.

How naive of the Potters to trust the dirty sewer rat as their secret keeper, he would make sure they regretted it. Although, he supposed, he could not fault them for it, since they had been steadfast friends since childhood, and that's the precise reason the Dark Lord did not let anyone close. After all, the closest people are the ones who have the most potential to hurt you.

He stood in front of the wooden door, casting a wandless detection charm to search for any traps or hidden people.

Of course, as expected of someone of the Potters' calibre.

The entire house was booby-trapped to the teeth, making even the wards of some old familial mansions pale in comparison. Voldemort guessed it would take him a couple of hours of work to set them all up, and it was definitely better than the defences he had back at his base of operations. So this was the second line of defence that he had to break through.

But that didn't matter, not really.

No, what gave him cause to worry was the multiple human presence inside the house.

He marked them out, two adults and one child on the ground floor, in front of him, and another adult and child upstairs. They came up like annoying pings on his radar, their silhouette turning up as silver ghosts against the house, making him frown deeply as he traced their frantic movements, apparently having detected his intrusion, but unable to escape thanks to the anti-apparition, anti-Floo and anti-Portkey wards he had set up around the house.

The three adults weren't supposed to be there.

Voldemort let out a loud, audible groan of frustration as the simple in-and-out mission was unnecessarily complicated.

The rat had managed to mess up the information. Of course. Of course.

However, Voldemort had to admit that the fault was his own in the first place, for trusting the sewer rat to deliver reliable information intact. The snivelling piece of dragon dung had a track record for messing up the simplest of tasks; of course, he had managed to mess up something so crucial.

No matter, it just gave the Dark Lord an excuse to torture someone.

Back to the task at hand.

Taking out his wand and a tuft of unicorn hair he had brought just to dispel all the wards, the Dark Lord drew a complicated string of runes in the air, searching for any weakness in the dense network of interwoven wards and spells and traps, some even borderline Dark. His wand left a trail of burning red, sparking and hissing violently in protest as his magic forced the runes to meld together, suspended in the air. The Dark Lord finished the runic lines with a little flourish he rarely allowed himself, before throwing the tuft of hair into the fiery runes, completing the little ritual.

Unicorns were the purest of creatures around, something so pure should not be restricted by wards, after all. Unicorn hair thus formed a perfect medium of exchange for the ward-breaking sequence he had drawn- such a high-level sequence needed something equally strong to serve as a medium. Otherwise, it wouldn't be able to unleash its full potential.

Voldemort waited for a few moments as the wards were shattered one by one, feeling the thick magic slowly fall away in layers, like a budding flower, leaving the house naked and undefended, exposed like a seed to the elements. He recast the detection spell, and as he had expected, there were no wards or traps remaining.

Shaking himself out of his victorious stupor, the Dark Lord strode forward purposefully, reminding himself that the war was not won, yet. It would be won only when the little two-year-old Potter girl prophesied to be his equal, stopped drawing breaths.

He stretched out his hand, his black robes falling away to reveal a thin, sickly arm, skin as pale as paper and barely more than bone and skin, placing his palm on the lock and casting a wandless unlocking charm.

The door gave a satisfying click in response and Voldemort pushed the door open, his clawed fingers leaving scratch marks on the smooth, polished wood.

"Good evening, my friends." He introduced himself to the two men who swung into view, standing in the middle of the room he had stepped into, their wands already pointed at him.

"I had expected a warmer welcome-" Voldemort's wand was out of his sleeve and in his grasp before the men could even complete their incantations, and he batted away the exploding curses aimed at his head with a lazy flick. "But I find the welcome... lukewarm at best."

The twin exploding curses flew harmlessly behind him, crashing into the wall and blowing open two massive holes in the wall, sending up a thick cloud of dust. Chunks of shattered brick and concrete now littered the floor near Voldemort's bare feet, and through the decimated wall, he could hear the merrymaking, ignorant mortals still roaming outside.

He regarded the room he had stepped into with a cold, calculating gaze that could have frozen Fiendfyre, noting everything present in the room, the layout, any spots where people could take cover, escape routes, any possible traps, everything.

The room was cozy, homely in a sense, with a couple of couches at one corner surrounding a small, low coffee table, diagonally opposite to which was the fireplace. There was assorted bric-a-brac atop the fireplace, a framed picture beside a Merlin bobblehead, some more nonsense and an urn full of what he assumed to be either Floor powder or the cremated remains of Charlus and Dorea Potter.

Maybe someone else would have been able to identify the brand of wood that went into the polished floor, or the nice, Gryffindor red carpet occupying half of the floor. Maybe they would have been able to appreciate how the golden cushions matched with the dark copper-coloured couch, or the sharp bricks at the fireplace that fit together like a masterful game of Tetris.

But Voldemort only noted that there weren't any traps, nor any cover that he couldn't blow to smithereens with a single spell.

Beside the fireplace, opposite where he was standing, there were wooden stairs leading upstairs, old and slightly worn with age, and an arched doorway leading to another room. Pushed up against the adjacent wall, to Voldemort's left, were a couple of bookshelves stacked with books, titles Voldemort was all familiar with, and a corner messy with assorted children's toys- toy brooms, miniature trolls and kid's wands- scattered across the floor.

Other than those, the walls were mostly bare- it was a safehouse alright, with the least amount of stuff ready to move at a moment's notice. Too bad their planning wouldn't help them now.

His red, slitted eyes scanned all these like an ever-watchful hawk, taking less time than it would have taken an average wizard to draw his wand, before coming to rest on the two men standing in the middle of the living room, two familiar, annoying faces- their existence no more of a nuisance than a fly buzzing over your food, snarling with hatred.

"James Potter. Sirius Black... Hmm... where's the third one? The werewolf?" Voldemort sneered at them. "I would have very much liked to complete the set. I'm a bit of a perfectionist, you know."

James Potter's signature windswept black hair and round-rimmed glasses hiding his hazel brown eyes were the same as always. There was no change there; all signs of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, something written into their DNA. The high, proud cheekbones and sharp, clean-shaven jaw told the story of a respectable Pureblood Heir, not the Blood Traitor that James Potter had turned out to be. He wore a red checked t-shirt and shorts that hung loosely around his lean frame, least prepared for battle and completely exposed, which told Voldemort just how badly the rat had messed up.

From the beginning, James Potter had never planned on attending the Order raid on the Death Eaters. It didn't really matter, but all the same, Voldemort would have preferred not finding it out when he was standing on the Potters' doorstep.

Beside him, Sirius Black was a similar story.

There were so many similarities between Sirius Black and his dear Bella, to the point that they might have been called siblings, their looks distinctly separate from the other Black children like the Blood Traitor Andromeda, or young Lucius' new wife, Narcissa.

Sirius and Bellatrix carried the true, pure Black blood, and it was revealed in their proud, high cheekbones and sharp, aristocratic nose. Familiar black eyes stared back at him, though this one carried none of the maniacal, obsessive fascination that the other pair was never without. Sirius also had Bellatrix's signature, curly black hair falling past his shoulders in gentle curls, slightly shorter than her but a magnificent black mane nonetheless.

And though the hereditary Black madness was not so prominent in this one, Voldemort could catch glimpses of the same from his unkempt, scraggly beard and thin moustache, along with ruffled, mismatched clothes that looked like it hadn't been washed for a few weeks.

He regarded them with silent contempt, his non-existent nose wrinkling, not bothering to break the tense silence that had settled between them, content with the stalemate.

Two wands, one mahogany and one black ebony, stared down at him, thrumming with potent magical power, their strings taut and a curse on their lips. But Voldemort remained unperturbed, almost ignorant of the two wands the same way one would be of a buzzing fly- he was bothered by something else that he couldn't quite put his finger on.

There was something off, something annoying at the back of his mind that was telling him that he was forgetting something, but Voldemort ignored it.

"Kiss my ass, bitch." It was the Black Heir who cursed at him so, breaking the silence and sending a flurry of borderline Dark curses at the Dark Lord. The curses flew towards him in a deadly arc of magic, sizzling and hissing and heating up the air in the room, sickly orange merging with vomit green and a variety of other colours to form a hodgepodge which defied common sense, all deadly spells, bone breakers, organ liquifiers, and deadly cutting curses that would cleave a man cleanly in half upon contact.

Voldemort only threw his head back, laughing at the feeble attempt as he erected a shield with a stylish wave of his wand. The spells clashed harmlessly against his immovable shield, sending up sparks as they fizzled out of existence, melting into little ripples which were quickly absorbed into Voldemort's sickly red shield. "And you call yourselves the Light. What a joke. Those spells were Darker than most of my intermediate-level Death Eaters can cast."

A silly grin appeared on Sirius' face despite the danger he was in. Ah, that should be the hereditary Black insanity speaking. "I guess I'm just that good."

He raised his wand, prepared to shoot another spell chain at the amused Dark Lord, but was stopped by his brother in all but blood, who raised a hand in warning to stop him.

"Prongs?" Sirius questioned, his eyebrow raised as he moved closer to James, his left foot in front to keep his back to James and minimize his exposure to Voldemort's wand, covering each other's backs just like they had been taught in Auror training.

"Bravo, young Aurors." Voldemort mocked them, bringing his two hands together in a crooked parody of applause. "Your stance has only twenty-three flaws, that is two hundred and sixty-five flaws less than the average Auror. Colour me impressed."

"Careful Padfoot," James warned, not taking his eyes off Voldemort even for a single moment and not paying any heed to his acidic words. A single nanosecond of distraction could mean the difference between life and death, and the relaxed way in which Voldemort's wand dangled from his long, thin fingers was akin to a snake, poised to strike faster than any eye could perceive. "Keep your eyes open. Check your fire and conserve your strength, I don't want to bring the house down on our heads."

Something flashed in Sirius' black eyes as he identified something in his friend's voice, and his lips set in a thin line as his dark eyes darted back to Voldemort's thinly smiling face.

Sirius spat. "Your smile is as disgusting as your... well, your face."

Voldemort laughed loudly at the Black Heir's foolish jest, not minding anything of the jokes of dead men. Rather, he was kind of curious to see what they were thinking of but didn't want to take the risk of using Legilimency against Pureblooded Heirs, who he knew to be well-defended Occlumens in the middle of a life-and-death duel.

"Let us not talk about our life and death on the arena of life and death, now, shall we?" Voldemort raised his wand, making the rubble from the destroyed wall float in response to his movement, heeding to his movements like a choir to the orchestrator, forming an impenetrable wall of floating, sharp jagged rock shared around him. "The only thing that we can do now is to share pointers. Care to enlighten me, Heirs Potter and Black?"

There were two synchronized, identical answers, less an answer and more a fierce snarl. "Fuck you."

The two Marauders converged their wands on the same target, calming their mind and steadying their wand as they had been taught, dragging their magical power into their wands for the most powerful strike possible. "Reducto."

"Wingardium leviosa." Voldemort intoned, almost mocking their efforts with a flourish of his wand as he cast a teensy wee first-year charm, utter humiliation his answer to the two seasoned Aurors' efforts.

The innumerable rocks which had been floating around him like a shield of jagged rubble shot forward with a deafening sound, converging into large masses that met the twin blasting curses midway, blocking them effectively and exploding into a cloud of dust.

"Fuck!" James shouted, slashing the dust cloud apart with a silent swing of his wand. "Incoming!"

He dove to the left while Sirius copied him on the right, both of them diving behind furniture to dodge the sickly green light of the killing curse barely missing the spot where they had been standing before. The Dark curse whizzed by them, missing the two by a hair's breadth, the closeness to certain death making their hair stand on end and their hearts pound painfully against their ribcage. The familiar acidic smell of Dark magic, putrid and revolting like a thousand rotting corpses in a bloody trench under the sun and the rain for a hundred days, filled the air, making the two men grimace.

Sirius vaulted over the couch, taking cover while shooting lethal spells blindly over the edge in Voldemort's general direction. James, on the other hand, had managed to topple over a bookshelf with a silent flick of his wand and had now lodged himself between the bookshelves, shooting spells safely from his wooden cage while keeping Voldemort in his crosshairs, pinning the monster with deadly spellfire from two opposite sides.

"Nice tactics." Voldemort sneered at them worse than Snivellus had ever done. For a moment, James almost felt like Severus was a close friend, before his thoughts were obliterated by another killing curse whizzing deadly close to his head, making him duck back down behind the toppled bookshelf.

"Unfortunately, it won't work." Voldemort's wand slashed through the air, his absolute control negating any need for unnecessary wand movement and showing off his mastery over advanced spells. A deadly, powerful arc of magic slashed forward, negating the endless barrage of spellfire and buying the monster enough time to weave in a spell chain of his own.

His wand moved quickly, in fluid, minimalistic motions that blended with each other to create a seemingly endless spell chain of lethal spells, both Light and Dark, woven together impeccably and charged with overpowered magic that thrummed so loudly it was painfully audible.

For a moment, time stood still, the air overcharged with magic as the spells were suspended in midair before a sharp jab of Voldemort's phoenix feather wand sent the spells shooting towards the two Heirs.

Recognising his intentions to blow their cover to smithereens, James and Sirius managed to raise a powerful shield right at the nick of time. The spells crashed into the blue shields, which groaned and flickered under the heavy strain of multiple spells crashing into them, each punching with the force of a rampaging troll.

James groaned audibly, his wand shaking violently as he struggled to maintain his shield, only barely hanging on.

He popped his head out from his hiding spot, noting Voldemort's position and sending a volley of blasting hexes and stunners at him. Even though the stunners wouldn't really do anything against such a monster, it would buy them enough time for them for a spell that would actually damage him to hit.

"Bombarda maxima!" James jabbed his wand several times, sending another volley of exploding curses towards Voldemort.

"Avis!" He waved his wand over all the books that lay scattered on the floor, transfiguring them into birds that shot towards the Dark Lord.

Voldemort only lazily noted all the birds that were diving towards him, raising his wand to counter when James struck.

Two quick jabs with his wand, and the birds were again transfigured midflight into javelins which were quickly banished towards Voldemort, their velocity only increasing thanks to the magical push. James didn't stop there either, slashing his wand downwards and sending two sharp cutting curses flying towards Voldemort's ankles, the spell's proximity to the ground making the wind whistle sharply as the books' pages fluttered in the sharp gust.

"I'm going to flank him Prongs!" Sirius shouted over to him, making James' eyes widen as he vaulted over the couch, rushing in a circle towards Voldemort's three, firing bludgeoning hexes and bone breakers all the while to keep him occupied.

All to no avail. Voldemort raised his hands in a grandiose manner, his wand held in a manner akin to an orchestrator's baton, halting the javelins in their flight before banishing them towards Sirius. He then brought his wand downwards in a sharp slash, sending his own cutting curse towards James, the two sweeping across the floor to meet the other's, fizzing out in the middle.

James clicked his tongue, ignoring the painful throbbing in his head as he raised his wand again. "Reducto!"

Across from him, Sirius yelped and ducked, falling to the ground and rolling forward as the innumerable javelins James had transfigured were shot at him. A few were shot to smithereens when they made contact with Sirius' spellfire, peppering him with wooden shrapnel, while the others lodged into the wall one by one, outlining the path that Sirius had taken by a line of javelins sticking out, each lodged deep enough in the floor that they would not have had any trouble killing him if he had been even a bit lax with his agility training. With a single move, Voldemort had managed to nullify both of their attacks while pinning Sirius down, leaving him little room to run.

"Careful, Padfoot!" James warned him, his heart thumping painfully in his chest as he saw Sirius getting hurt from the shrapnel, his clothes being torn to tatters and blood dripping from innumerable deep cuts on his exposed arms and legs. It was at this time that James really missed his duelling robes which were carefully tucked away in a cupboard upstairs.

Flanking Voldemort was a death wish, but Sirius was known for idiotic ideas that were more often death traps than not.

It was not like he was much better, James reflected. His arms felt heavy, the pounding in the back of his head, like someone was hammering at his skull with a chisel, was only growing worse and he tasted copper on his tongue. His nose was bleeding, a fact that he confirmed when he put his fingers to his upper lip. They came away sticky and stained crimson, the telltale signs of magical exhaustion slowly settling in, and his wand trembled in his hand.

He wondered whether he had any magic left to cast even an Expelliarmus. What a joke.

"Now it's my turn to attack, if you would." Voldemort's amused voice betrayed the fact that this was all just a game to him, as he raised his wand again, regarding his two opponents with cold, cruel calculation, his voice steady and unwavering. "Avada Kedavra."

And of course, Voldemort would finish the game with his signature curse.

"Merlin's bloody balls," James swore loudly, waving his wand and making several books fly up in the air between them, to block the sickly green killing curse from reaching him, and forming a thin wall of hardbound paper, but that would be enough.

Sirius wasn't so lucky.

He was so close to Voldemort, his flanking manoeuvre having gone as horribly as was expected in the enclosed space.

He barely had any time to raise his wand, conjuring a wooden plank to block the killing curse. Wood met magic and the result would have been obvious even to children. While the killing curse's sickly green light fizzled out, the plank was reduced to ashes that burst out between them in a black cloud that made Sirius choke.

He would have transfigured the ash to attack Voldemort again, but yelped as another Killing curse emerged from the ash, realising too late that Voldemort had used the ash to sneak in a haze spell that would cut off his visibility. The sickly green glow emerged from the black smoke as if in slow motion, barely inches from Sirius' face.

Maybe it was fate, but Sirius was already halfway into transforming into his Animagus form by the time his brain had even registered the green glow through the smoke to be that of the killing curse. Maybe it was his animalistic instinct, coupled with the sharp nose that he retained from his dog half, that had recognised the acrid smell of the familiar Dark magic even before his human eyes had seen it, but Merlin saved Sirius' black-furred hide.

It was Padfoot who burst through the smoke blindly, led only through his keen sense of smell that accurately pinpointed the faint, rotten smell still lingering at the tip of Voldemort's wand, but he emerged from the smoke untouched, the Killing curse having passed harmlessly overhead.

If the Dark Lord was surprised by the shaggy furred black dog that had emerged from the smoke, as large as a small Cerberus with its sharp teeth, each as large as a finger, bared and aimed for his neck, it didn't find expression on his reptilian features.

His hand darted out like a viper, his large clawed hand encircling the mutt's jaws and snapping it shut like how a Master would discipline a dirty dog, not even caring that it was one of the most respected and powerful Aurors whose jaws he had snapped shut.

He could see the Animagus' dog eyes widen in horror as he felt Voldemort's unnaturally strong grip on his snout, as he struggled futilely to open his jaws against the grasp that sat like a boulder on his snout, and bite the bastard's hand off. He growled threateningly in the back of his throat, his black eyes never straying from Voldemort's slitted red eyes as he helplessly scratched at the wooden floor, trying his best to get away from Voldemort's inhumane grip, his claws clicking futilely against the wood as he struggled to break free, unable to do anything.

Sirius hadn't expected the body of the sickly-looking, thin Dark Lord who preached about magical superiority so much to be so strong. It was a fatal oversight on his part- and now, he would pay the price.

Voldemort saw the look of resignation that entered the Black Heir's eyes, the fighting spirit slowly fading away to reveal jaded eyes that he so loved to see, as listless as the eyes of the dead, yet still with a fierce protectiveness that only had one cure.

He felt the Black Heir begin to transform in his hand, his snout shortening and flattening back to his human face and slipping out of his grasp, but Voldemort didn't pay him much attention.

Sirius Black was dead before his transformation was complete, and when his lifeless body hit the ground, he still had his black fur and clawed, knobby fingers.

With one annoyance taken care of, Voldemort turned his attention to the Heir Potter.

"James Potter," Voldemort called, almost like a Professor taking attendance, slashing his wand through the black smoke to clear his vision and dispel the spell.

The two overpowered bone breakers that he was suddenly faced with, only disappointed him.

"You had so much time while I dealt with your annoying friend. I expected something more powerful and creative." Voldemort tutted in disapproval, as if James had failed his test, batting away the bone breakers without a second gaze. "Now, what do you have to say?"

James couldn't see straight from magical exhaustion. His knees refused to support his weight, the absolute agony he felt in his skull having moulded together until it felt like someone was tightening a vice on his skull, and his vision was blurry even with his glasses- until Voldemort was a black blob with no defined borders, that melted into the background. His nose was now leaking blood as freely as a gaping wound would, and he could feel his chin stained with sticky blood, the front of his red t-shirt soaked dark with the same.

His hand stretched in front of him trembled violently, his wand refusing to remain straight, and any spell that he could cast fizzled out before it passed a yard. Every single bit of magic, even if it was as simple as a first-year charm, was burning years away from his life, but James didn't give in, still holding on to his Gryffindor pride, and fuelled with a fierce desire to protect- the hexes that sapped away decades from his life force not even registering.

James Potter, whose eyesight was even worse now than it had always been, couldn't be faulted for not noticing the animated carpet that snuck up behind him, striking him like a coiled snake.

He couldn't even summon the energy to swear, the only sound that escaped from his lips being a pained, tired groan as he hit the floor painfully with a wooden thud, his wand clattering away from his tired fingers.

He was immediately met with a bone breaker to the sternum, no longer protected by the bookshelves, and making him cough up blood.

He could faintly hear Voldemort's footsteps nearing him through the ringing in his ears, not really hearing as much as he felt the vibrations in the ground much like a snake would.

How ironical.

"A severe case of magical exhaustion." He heard Voldemort's voice above him, and couldn't even muster the energy to look at him. "How fascinating. I could have sworn you didn't even cast so many spells."

His voice was like an interested academic looking at a failed experiment, marvelling at its impossibility. "Well anyway, Avada Kedavra."

James Potter died protecting his family, a faint, tired smile on his lips as he joined his brother in the eternal sleep.

Voldemort was the only sign of life in the destroyed living room.

He tutted at himself. It had taken him longer than he had anticipated, and the Dark Lord chalked it up to him having too much fun playing with his food. That was indisciplined of him.

No matter, one of his followers would pay for that later.

He looked around at the silent room, where he was the only one still drawing breaths, frowning at something missing.

Ah, he remembered now. There was supposed to be a child with them- the Homenum Revelio had said as much.

He briefly thought about finding out where the child had run to, before thinking better of it.

Right now, he had a gift to prepare for the esteemed Lily Potter.


Lord Voldemort, the greatest Dark Lord of the age, the flight of death, stood in front of a small, unassuming door on the second floor of Potter cottage at Godric's Hollow, a gift in his left hand, his wand in his right, examining the door in front of him meticulously.

The wards sewn into this door were hastily drawn, the most basic of wards taught to advanced Charms students, solid and impenetrable superficially, however, riddled with innumerable holes once he took a proper look at it.

It was pathetic, honestly, for someone with such renown as Lady Potter- he thought, sneering at the title, but apparently, the Mudblood Lily Potter had chosen quantity over quality, opting to heap on as many wards as she could in the little time that she had instead of focusing on a single one.

He knew she had the potential to weave a ward on par with Dumbledore given enough time, but he guessed that she also had the brains to realise that it would be easier for him to dismantle a single ward than to unweave and separate multiple wards before taking them down. Kudos to her, she knew that they wouldn't be able to escape, so she was trying to buy herself and her children as much time as possible and wait hopefully for outside help.

Ah, self-sacrifice. How noble, as expected of a mother, a Gryffindor mother, no less.

Too bad he had prepared just for this moment.

He slid his wand back into his sleeve with a fluid flick of his hand, before pulling out an advanced ward stone- a piece of gilded marble carved with innumerable runes, all woven together with magic and locked by a single large rune that glowed a bright, beautiful azure.

Lucius had to pay a lot of money to get this, and he didn't really need to use it to break wards as meagre as the ones Lily Potter had set up, but he was short on time and horribly impatient after all the little surprises he had been treated to thanks to the rat's incompetence.

Voldemort tossed the expensive ward-breaking stone at the door much like a Pureblood would toss a Galleon at a beggar on Knockturn Alley, watching with muted interest as it made contact with the magic overlapping the door like a thick layer of molasses, viscous and slow-moving. Magic clashed with magic like fire with ice, sending up sparks and hissing violently as the ward-breaking stone sank into the wards painfully slowly like a stone in mud, making a horrible screeching sound like an iron knife scraping against gravel, sparking violently.

He had heard that the Muggles had developed something similar in that primitive, ingenious way that they had. What was it called? Yeah, thermite.

He closed his eyes to protect his sensitive sight from the bright light- his senses being many times more sensitive to magic than the average wizard, until he could even see the lingering traces of magic on a wand unused for a decade, but sometimes, a boon could be a curse as well.

All of a sudden, everything fell silent, a painful silence that seemed to reverberate through the empty house after the painful noise of wards shattering, only broken by the sound of the spent stone clattering to the ground lifelessly, the runic glow engraved on its face distinctly absent and dead, devoid of magic. The loud ringing in his ears slowly receded like the waves of a retreating sea until, finally, everything was quiet.

Voldemort let out a small breath, as if to compose himself and not let his excitement derail his plans, as he pushed the door open. Leave it to a monster like him to be so excited at the prospect of murdering a baby.

The door led to what seemed like a nursery, the scene a bit amusing to his twisted mind. To think that the girl destined to end his life would die instead in the room meant to nurture her.

The walls were covered with brightly coloured wallpaper, depicting flowers with a silly little caricature of Merlin flying through the flowers on a broom. The carpeted floor was soft underneath his bare feet, his footsteps silent as he stepped into the room, his absent nose wrinkling in disgust at the stuff that cluttered the floor. Innumerable children's books were stacked one on top of the other, a few half-read and lying open on the floor, accompanied by an equally innumerable number of toys.

"Seemed like you were growing up to be quite the spoiled child, Miss Potter." Voldemort let a tight smile show on his face. "As expected of a Pureblood daughter."

"Stay away from my children, Voldemort."

His eyes swivelled almost lazily to the woman, the only adult in the room other than himself. "Ah, Lily Potter. How nice to meet you again. And I see, your arrogance is no less now than it was last week, how refreshing."

Looking at her, he couldn't help but wonder at her youth. It seemed as if she hadn't aged a day since she had graduated. Her lush, dark scarlet hair that his servant had fallen in love with so, her emerald eyes that were looking at him with hatred unmatched, simmering with barely restrained anger that made her look like a vengeful goddess, emotions that the two men he had bested downstairs couldn't hold a candle to. Tears streamed down her flawless, ivory cheeks, flushed pink with anger, her eyes red with grief at the knowledge that her dear husband no longer drew breaths.

Even though Voldemort had long ascended from any sort of mortal attachments, he could see why his servant pined after this Mudblood so. Her grief seemed to be something taken out from a Renaissance painting, her beauty unmatched by anything earthen, her anger as fiery as her hair, her emotions sculpted by a divine artist.

Lily's wand was trembling violently as she stood between him and the crib containing her daughter, who was fast asleep through all the noise; maybe it was the effect of one of those silence charms that parents seemed to love so much, protecting her from all the outside noise.

Voldemort didn't even bother with the woman, not paying the woman much attention. He was already short on time as it was, and he knew that the mother wouldn't throw even a single spell no matter how much she hated him.

No, she wouldn't risk her child's safety like that, something that only played in his favour.

"I have prepared a precious gift for you." Voldemort brought his left hand from behind his back, tossing the so-called gift towards the bewildered woman. "Let it not be said that Lord Voldemort is not a magnanimous guest."

"Huh?" He caught the utter surprise in her voice as she caught the book he had tossed at her, unable to help it as her eyes immediately flicked towards the hardbound cover. It was a book from her own collection, she recognised it from the little LE scribbled at the bottom right corner of the stiff cover, but her eyes were drawn instead to the glowing, single rune engraved into the middle of the scarlet binding, glowing with a malevolent, dark blood red colour, darker yet infinitely brighter than the surrounding paper- like the wrath of a dying sun forcefully imprisoned in the rune, magic that sought to break free from its confines, its screams for freedom almost audible in the way the magic swirled in the rune, looking for a means of escape.

"Sowilo." Voldemort read the familiar rune out loud for her, enjoying the look of utter panic that came over her face as she recognised the rune equivalent of a Bombarda, his lips stretching across his face in a horrible parody of a grin at her expression. For a moment, it seemed as if Lily would toss away the ticking time bomb she was holding, before she realised that she was barely a foot away from her baby daughter.

Her maternal instincts and Muggle upbringing overpowered her reason, and she dived to the floor, clutching the book to her chest in a desperate bid to protect her daughter.

"Leave it to a Mudblood to forget about their wand." Voldemort's cold, mocking laugh made Lily's eyes widen as she finally remembered that she was a witch and could easily use magic to protect herself, but it was too late by then.

Maybe it was the panic, maybe it was the knowledge that her husband was no more, maybe it was the immortal monster standing mere feet from her daughter, but Lily's mind was not working anymore, a supercar with a stalled engine, sputtering and struggling to even move. The most genius witch of her generation was as dumb as a stupid Flobberworm at that moment, with her wand in her hand and a bomb to her chest.

"Protego-" The shield had barely shimmered into existence, forming a flickering pale blue shell around the book, when it exploded, Voldemort's overpowered Sowilo tearing through it like wet tissue paper, the shield shattering like weak glass, its pieces clattering to the ground and dissolving where they fell. The loud explosion reverberated through the otherwise silent house, ripping the silence apart and creating a small crater on the wooden floor.

Lily, though protected from the brunt of the impact by her hastily erected shield, was still sent flying backwards by the shock of the explosion, crashing into the wall with a dull groan, loud enough that Voldemort could hear the cracking of bones and the shattering of brick as she made contact.

The filthy Mudblood stood on her weak legs for a moment, dazed and unsure, swaying on the spot, her emerald eyes unfocused as she searched desperately for her baby before her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and she collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

The Dark Lord regarded her limp, unmoving body for a moment. Her clothes were slightly torn from the impact, and he could spot a few ribs sticking out, blood staining the pale yellow apron that she had been wearing. Her arm was twisted at an unnatural angle.

"My faithful servant wants you as a reward," Voldemort told the unconscious woman. "I must make sure you are unharmed to reward the only one of my followers who is capable of carrying out orders properly."

He stepped over the woman, looking down at little Rose Potter, the one destined to be his equal, sleeping so peacefully in her crib, ignorant of everything that was going on around her.

"Good night, little Rose." He raised his wand at the young Potter sleeping so peaceful and ignorant in her crib, the tip glowing a sickly green, prepared to secure his victory once and for all when he was interrupted by a young voice from behind.

"Get away from her!"

AN: I would have published this yesterday, but I didn't want to publish this without giving the chapter another read. The first chapter is, of course, the one that creates an impression on the reader about how the author is.

I feel a bit regretful deleting A Darker Shade of Magic, with all the kudos, bookmarks and subscriptions that it had, but unfortunately, the plot was a bit too edgy and complicated for me to continue writing. After involving so many characters, and OCs with their own backstories to detail, it became a bit too much, like a Gordian knot that both I and you had to unravel.

I took the easy way out, and after having given enough time for it to be adopted, I decided to delete it from my works. No longer shall I have any copy of DSM whatsoever.

Now, my first HP fanfic, third really, shall be STS- Sun Tzu Says. And I know the name is a bit random, but I felt like it fit since Harry will be justifying all his actions with quotes from The Art of War.

Maybe I could have given the title The Art of War, but that would have been unoriginal, now, wouldn't it?

What were your opinions on this grand prologue? I know you don't really get any insight with this chapter, but the mysteries will all be cleared up in the next one.

Keep calm and headbang!