AN: This is what happens when not quite stereotypical Dark Wizard TM goes off their potions regiment and tries to prove to everyone they're right...

Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. It belongs to J. K. Rowling and the various publishers. This story is written with no commercial aims. I do not make any money from it.

Dark Lording, for dummies

=DL=

Prologue: The advent of a Dark Lord TM

A Dark Wizard's lair

unplottable location

Southern France

Marcelie Durrand, Mac to his close, dear and very unlamented friends cackled happily in anticipation. He will show them all! Lunatic they called him! A madman! Bah! Today was the day! He was going to prove them all wrong!

"Morgana's pale behind, master! I told you to open the windows!" A young woman's voice cut through Mac's happy thoughts.

He heard a swish, then the heavy enchanted drapes keeping his laboratory properly dark moved away and the windows opened with a loud squealing sound. Merciless sunlight invaded Durrand's sanctum and he squeaked in pain when it shone in his bloodshot eyes.

"That's better. Master, we talked about this! You need more light. You're paler than a week old Inferi." The woman chirped.

"Apprentice!" Marcelie hissed venomously. "Don't you see I'm busy!" He whined. He was just gearing for a proper monologue, damn it! Merde!

Said apprentice twitched her small nose as she examined him and rolled her eyes at the sight.

"Why are you wearing that old fashioned nightdress? What's with the white mask anyway? It's all so last decade!"

"It's only proper!" Mac whined. "I'm doing my Lord's work!" He made a grand gesture to a wooden rack where a scared looking muggle was tied up with all too many chains and ropes. There wouldn't be any inconvenient last minute escapes on Marcelie's watch, no sire!

"Why did you kidnap another muggle and why is he in a nightclothes too?" The apprentice huffed and shook her head in exasperation, which made her shoulder length blond hair shake like a mane.

"He's a proof!" Marcelie eagerly explained.

"Of what?"

"Everything! I'll show them all that muggles steal our magic! Oh, I'll be bringing back our lord too!" Mac nodded. How couldn't she see his genius? It was so obvious. Why was it so hard to get proper apprentices and minions these days?!"

"Your death fearing master has been dead for about a decade or so now!"

"See! Genius! You didn't think to ask how I'll prove muggles steal magic! You like everyone else focus on my Lord!" Mac gleefully exclaimed. "When I show you that," He jabbed a clawed finger at the muggle, "can really steal magic, everyone will concentrate on that fact! No one will pay attention that I've brought back my Lord!"

"Master, what did I tell you about drinking your potions?" The woman narrowed he eyes at him. "About cutting off your fingernails before I'll need to vanish them wholesale too..."

"Apprentice, now isn't the time!" Besides who needed those potions! They made him think slowly and in much, much smaller scope! Why, the last time he drank them he willingly went out in the day! In the sun! That's not how proper Dark Wizards do it!

"Why do I ever bother..." She grumbled. "What are you going to do with him anyway?"

"I told you already! Didn't you pay any attention?! Help these days… They don't make you like in the good old days..."

"Less incest and inbred fools running around you mean?"

"Yes! It's un-thinkable! Just look at yourself! All that smooth skin! No warts, your mother is a Veela and yet here you're as my apprentice! It's improper!"

"Morgana damn it, it's not worth it..." The newly dubbed half Veela's eyes lit up with inner fire. In the rays of the morning sun her profile subtly shifted and looked positively avian.

"See! I'll show you!" Mac ignored his apprentice, whipped out his wand and began chanting in Latin.

The entire lab lit up with runic circles, potions strategically placed at the edges of five or six pointed stars began smoking choking vapors and the few shadows not chased off by the sun began moving.

"I'll have to clean up this mess, I know it..." The Veela grumbled. She took a few steps back and summoned a slab of marble to hide behind, then cast a Protego.

Something unnatural screeched from the shadows. Cold winds blew from deep withing the lab and Durrand's chanting picked up a notch. Whatever language he was speaking now, it wasn't meant for human vocal cords.

The lab shook. A snake screamed. Marcelie shouted in triumph then it was his turn to howl when the shadows jumped at him and through him. He felt his blood bubble, then boil. The magic within it was siphoned out and that was a beautiful agony. Only his Lords Crucio could compare!

Marcelie could follow where his magic was going. He was right! The muggle was eating it! Uh… The muggle was eating his magic. That wasn't supposed to happen!

"Master? You alive over there?"

Oh… Oh! Mac knew he forgot something in his haste to prove everyone wrong. His apprentice should be standing where he was doubled over on the floor to get her magic drained and put in the muggle. This wasn't fair! How could he rub his success in everyone's faces if he was a squib or worse?!

Marcelie gathered his remaining strength and looked up at the bound muggle. Two furious red eyes glared back. Mac was in heaven! HE DID IT! His Lord was back!

The last of Durrand's magic was forcefully torn off from his blood and he collapsed on the floor dead with a grin forever frozen on his face.

The living shadows swirled around the muggle, passed through him and then returned to normal as if afraid from the light of the sun, The unnatural wind ceased and the hissing sound were no more.

"I wish I could say this was surprising." The Veela grumbled and vanished her improvised fort. "What am I to do with you two?" She muttered at the two bodies.

"I can think of a few things. Who are you anyway, why am I tied to a medieval torture implement and why is he dead?" A cultured, English sounding voice came from the muggle. He was looking at her with a pair of crimson eyes shinning with power.

"Master, you outdid yourself this time..."

"Master? I would remember if I was your master, you can be sure of that." The muggle examined her figure and nodded to himself.

"Who are you anyway?"

"Me? I'm supposed to be a Dark Lord." He frowned. "I think. It's right mess in here. You can call me Tom. May I have the pleasure of knowing your name?"

"Lydia. You talk a bit off. A Dark Lord, huh?"

"Am I?" His frown deepened. "I think you might be right…"

"About you being a Dark Lord or about your talking being strange?"

"Yes."

"Not another one..."

"Well, the one thing I remember for sure is that I'm supposed to be a Dark Lord." A pause. "I can't remember how to be a proper one however. Do you have a book on the topic? Some kind of guide?"

"What? Dark Lording for dummies or English?" Lydia rolled her eyes.

"That would be neat!" Tom looked at his restrains. He glared at them and magic pulsed around his body shredding chains and ropes alike.

"Wandless?!" Lydia exclaimed in surprise at the impossibility and pointed her wand at Tom.

"I knew a few tricks like that." He looked at the destroyed bindings at his feet. "Two, no three." Tom got away from the rack and looked at her. "What happens now? What about that guide you promised? He asked eagerly.

"You'll teach me everything you know about wandless magic and whatever other tricks you know and I'll help you be the best Dark Lord ever! Trust me about that."

Tom looked at the corpse of her former master, then back at her.

"Indeed?"

=DL=

Prologue, Part II

=DL=

A Dark Wizard's lair

unplottable location

Southern France

The two magicians were sitting in the kitchen sipping coffee, while Tom explained what little he remembered to his brand new self-styled accomplice. He couldn't shake off the feeling that the place was terribly old fashioned – no running warm water, no electricity for Merlin's sake. The furniture was something out of Dickens too and not the nice stuff either. It wasn't actually shabby but certainly not what someone would expect to find in the lair of a well off dark wizard.

Tom looked around the kitchen again and rethought that. It entirely depended on your expectations of what you might find in such a wizard's hidey hole.

Dark wizard… Tom was still trying to properly wrap his head around that idea. Magic came natural to him, just like breathing. It was in his very nature, he knew that for sure. Yet, in the same time there was a part of him that was excited by the very idea – as if he found out magic existed earlier today and he couldn't help but find it new and wondrous.

"It sounds like botched up Obliviation…" Lydia hummed.

"That might explain the jumble that's my mind." Tom agreed. "I know how to cast a lot of spells." He twirled Durrand's wand in his long fingers. "However I don't recall how I learned them." He frowned. "I know Tom's my name, but otherwise… Damn it." The wizard cursed in frustration.

"It sound like something Marcelie would do when he was off his potions." The witch agreed.

"What did you do with him anyway?" Tom inquired.

"Transfigured him into a marble. I'll properly dispose of him later. Rule number one: don't leave evidence laying around if you can help it or unless you plan for it to be found. Getting the Aurors on you this early will spell disaster." Lydia explained.

"Dully noted." Tom wondered what was he supposed to do now. He thought about just leaving this Dark Lord business behind, however something within him rebelled at that thought. He was the Dark Lord, he bloody earned it, damn it all to hell!

Tom took a sip from his tea, which was excellent, and returned his attention to Lydia.

"What does it mean to be a successful Dark Lord?" He asked innocently.

"Successful?" Lydia frowned. She picked up a croissant, took a delicate nibble from it and leaned back in her chair while having a thoughtful expression on her face. "I can tell you about the last two famous Dark Lords in Europe. They were certainly very powerful and dangerous wizards in their own right. How successful each of them was, that's a complicated question."

"Is it? Are any of them still around?" Tom asked. He guessed it was a matter of perspective and how you define success. Simply becoming very powerful and feared? To some that might be enough. Achieving your goals? Living to enjoy the fruit of your labors? Yes, he could see Lydia's point.

"Not exactly. One has been dead since eighty one and the other has been imprisoned in his own impenetrable prison for over forty years." The witch intoned and get back to her snack.

"Lydia, please remind me to leave myself a way to escape if I ever fancy building an inescapable prison." Tom chuckled. Getting locked up in your own prison had to be embracing, yet it was also a testament of a job well done if you couldn't escape it.

"I certainly will. Let's make that rule thirty something. I'll put up a proper list later." Lydia said after polishing off her croissant and washing it with some coffee. "Dark Lords. The last one here in Europe was an English parvenue calling himself Lord Voldemort."

Tom's hand froze in mid-air as he was bringing his cup towards his lips. "Flight from death?" He asked aloud. The name sounded vaguely familiar, something he might have picked back in the day when he was a wet behind the ears teenager. Perhaps as a joke because he found the idea of calling himself that amusing.

"I understand here in France he was viewed as a bit of a joke if somewhat dangerous as well." Lydia's forehead scrunched cutely in thought. "I recall he came in the open in the mid-seventies. He tried to topple the British ministry in one fell stroke, failed and only then began waging a war in earnest. It was terribly convenient."

"How so?" Tom's interest perked up. He intended to learn from his predecessors mistakes.

"I'll get in more detail when I cover the other Dark Lord of this age, but in a nutshell? The war across the Channel drew in all that was left of our pure blood supremacists. Most of them got conveniently got themselves either killed, broken or in prison."

"I take it their kind isn't popular in France?" Tom asked. He found the topic both interesting and conflicting. He felt like magical blood mattered a great deal… as long as it carried power and capability. He had the sinking feeling that might not be the case.

"Hell no!" Lydia exclaimed. "Inbred imbeciles most of them..." She muttered quietly. "Where was I? Voldy, right? Well, he was kinda winning. Only one man could stand against him without fear – Albus Dumbledore. If he wasn't on the field, which happened rarely, Voldemort tended to win. By eighty one a series of either defeats, Pyrrhic victories and assassinations had the British Ministry on the ropes. It didn't help that many of the old families in the islands backed the Dark Lord. He was the personification of their agenda you see – pure-blood supremacy, a guarantee for their continued political and economical power not to mention blaming everything bad happening on muggle-borns and muggles."

"He told them what they wanted to hear and they followed him?" Tom asked. It sounded too simple and neat. The real world seldom worked that way.

"Hey! I wasn't there! For better information you'll need to pick up a decent textbook or have contacts with people who fought on both sides. All I can give you is the bare bones because you certainly don't remember even that." Lydia exclaimed in indignant tone.

Did it just get warmer in here, Tom wondered. "You're right." He admitted. He wasn't too keen on upsetting the only person he actually knew. "Please continue."

Lydia glowered at him for a long moment before relaxing a bit. "Long story short, at the end of October eighty one, Voldie went after the Potters – an Auror and his wife who were opposing him since the start of the war. No one is sure what exactly happened that night, but when the dust settled, most of the house was wrecked, the Potters were dead, Voldemort had vanished and only their toddler remained. Its speculated that the Dark Lord tried to Avada Kedavra the munchkin, it backfired for some reason and he was destroyed. The kid got the ridiculous moniker the Boy-Who-Lived and Voldie the distinct pleasure of being vanquished by a baby."

"Don't use the killing curse on toddlers, is this the point? Or don't go after kids in general?" Tom wondered aloud. This story sounded like a children's fable. He wondered if the British Ministry used it as a smoke-screen to conceal how they took out Voldemort. That sounded much more plausible than a baby defeating an adult wizard, much less a supposed Dark Lord. He told Lydia so himself.

"Some certainly believe that to be the case. I've heard rumors Voldie isn't really gone too, but well..." She shrugged helplessly.

"The other Dark Lord?" Tom asked and picked up a scone – his fourth. They were bloody good.

"I can tell you much more about him. We did study Grindelwald in school and my grandparents fought in the war so I do have more reliable knowledge about him."

"The cliff notes again, please. But before we get to that story, what are we going to do?" Tom wondered.

"Well, we're having a snack and talking." Lydia pointed out brightly.

"A bit longer term." Tom sighed at her irrelevant attitude. He found it both endearing and frustrating.

"I get to be your apprentice and you teach me everything you know about magic." Lydia promptly replied.

"What do I get from the deal?" Tom asked.

"Why, my help in learning how to function in proper society, a sounding board to avoid typical Dark Lord mistakes and assistance in figuring out how to be a successful Dark Lord!"

"As in a Dark Lord who lives to enjoy his retirement outside of prison?"

"That's certainly a nice start, Tom. However, let's be a bit more ambitious than that!" Lydia smiled.

Tom felt a sinking feeling in the bottom of his stomach. That wild glint in her eyes, the wicked smile formed by her lips… It reminded him of someone. Tom certainly liked that expression on her heart shaped face. Yet, he wasn't so sure about the implications.

Who was going to teach him how to handle Lydia?