Chapter 10: Shadows of the Past
The Great Hall was as breathtaking as ever, its enchanted ceiling reflecting a starry night sky. The room glowed with the warmth of floating candles, casting soft light over the long house tables where the first-years gathered at the front for the Sorting Ceremony. Harry only vaguely listened as the Sorting Hat bellowed house names one by one of the new students.
"Hufflepuff!"
Polite applause rose from the Hufflepuff table as their newest addition scurried over. Harry's attention, however, was fixed on the staff table. Snape was watching him. Not with his usual sneer, but with something more pointed. Harry clenched his jaw and turned back to his plate. He could feel the weight of it, tight beneath his ribs. Snape was always watching, but this was different. Less contempt and more study.
Next to Snape sat a familiar, expectant face. Lucius Malfoy had taken a seat beside him and was staring in their direction. Whether his attention was on Draco or on Harry, he couldn't tell. But Harry didn't like the way his eyes lingered. He didn't have a chance to ask Draco about his father before Dumbledore rose for announcements.
"Welcome to another year at Hogwarts," the headmaster said, his voice carrying easily across the Hall. "Before we begin our feast, I have several announcements."
"First, a reminder that the Forbidden Forest is exactly that, off-limits. Any students caught within will face severe consequences."
Draco snorted. "Tell that to Hagrid."
Harry smiled faintly. The blonde still wasn't over his detention last year that had left him fleeing the Forbidden Forest in terror. Harry didn't elaborate, but he remained convinced that the creature feeding on unicorns Draco had encountered wasn't just a monster. It had been Voldemort, or some shade of him.
"Second, our caretaker, Argus Filch, has asked me to remind students that magic in the corridors is strictly prohibited."
A few students chuckled quietly. Harry didn't. Filch might have been ridiculous, but he had an uncanny knack for catching people in the wrong place at the wrong time.
"I would also like to welcome Lucius Malfoy to Hogwarts, acting as the Board of Governors' representative," Dumbledore continued. His voice was even, but his expression had grown noticeably tight. "He will be a frequent visitor this term. I ask that you extend him your courtesy."
Harry glanced at Draco, who looked just as caught off guard.
"I didn't know," Draco muttered under his breath. "Honestly."
Harry narrowed his eyes but said nothing. There was no hint of deceit in Draco's voice, only confusion and the beginning of something that looked like irritation.
A few seats down, Gemma spoke for the first time, her voice low but certain. "He doesn't come without purpose. If Lucius Malfoy is here, it means someone's trying to make a point."
She didn't look at Draco when she said it, but Harry saw the slight tension in her jaw. Draco tensed considerably.
"And finally," Dumbledore said, "it is my pleasure to introduce our new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Professor Gilderoy Lockhart."
The Great Hall erupted into applause. Or at least part of it did.
Several students, mostly girls, clapped with enthusiasm. Others traded skeptical glances. At the staff table, Lockhart stood with theatrical flair, flashing a dazzling smile as he waved with both hands like he had just arrived on stage instead of at a school. His peacock-blue robes shimmered garishly under the candlelight, and Harry almost squinted from the glare coming off his unnaturally white teeth.
"That man couldn't duel his way out of a wet paper bag," Gemma muttered as she cut into her roast chicken. "Smiles like that are usually hiding something."
Harry glanced at her. She hadn't looked up from her plate.
Blaise chuckled. "You planning to test him, Farley?"
"No need," she replied, completely calm. "He'll be a disaster all on his own."
Harry didn't disagree. His brief interaction with Lockhart had left him almost longing for Quirrell, which was saying something, given that Quirrell had been possessed by Voldemort. At least with Quirrell, the threat had been real. Lockhart, on the other hand, felt like a walking publicity stunt. It was as if the entire school was about to be buried under a flood of teeth-whitening charm advertisements and shameless self-promotion.
The Slytherin table hardly reacted to the introduction. Whatever fanfare Lockhart had expected was lost completely on the snake den. Most students were still watching Lucius Malfoy, whispering behind their hands and casting sidelong glances at Draco. Harry was fairly certain he heard a third year mutter, "They're multiplying."
As soon as Dumbledore sat back down, several pairs of eyes turned toward Draco. The feast appeared on the table a moment later, but half the students seemed to forget it entirely. "Why is your father even here?" Daphne asked, her tone sharp as she watched Lucius settle into his seat beside Snape.
"The Board never shows up for the Sorting," she added, brows furrowed.
"Is he just dropping in to intimidate people?" Tracey asked, tearing a roll in half with pointed focus.
Theo arched his brow. "Probably wants to make sure we're all properly behaved. Or at least properly dressed."
Draco rolled his eyes and reached for his goblet. "We barely saw him this summer. Mother and I were in France most of July visiting a great aunt, and then she dragged me to Spain for a weeklong gala. He said he was too busy and stayed behind."
"Too busy for Spain?" Daphne said skeptically. "That's new."
Draco gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I think he's been spending more time at the Ministry. He says it's about public image. Mother says it's because he hates heat and family obligations."
"That sounds about right," Blaise said with a smirk. "Your mum makes him be sociable, and he ducks into legislation instead."
Draco didn't disagree. "He's never come to a feast before, though. I don't know what he's doing here."
Harry watched Lucius quietly. The elder Malfoy was speaking with Snape now in low, measured tones. His posture was perfectly still and refined. It was deliberate and composed.
Harry didn't like it. Men like Lucius didn't make unplanned appearances. They didn't linger in the background without a reason. And they certainly didn't show up to school events unless there was an advantage.
"Maybe he's here to make sure Lockhart doesn't completely humiliate the school," Theo said, stabbing a piece of roast chicken with unnecessary force.
"Or maybe he just likes the attention," Tracey added, picking at her bread roll without looking up.
"Maybe it's about the trolls that broke in last year," Daphne suggested as she casually spread butter on her roll.
The others nodded along like that made perfect sense, but Harry blinked and stared at her.
"Trolls?" he echoed. "I thought it was just the one."
Daphne raised an eyebrow. "Oh, you wouldn't have heard. You were stuck with muggles all summer, right?"
Harry's stomach twisted, but he didn't respond. There wasn't much to say. She wasn't wrong, and the comment hadn't been cruel, just casually indifferent. A simple truth, delivered without malice, that still managed to land like a bruise. It reminded him that the others moved in the same circles, shared the same spaces, and spoke the same language. They had likely seen each other more than once over the break, drifting between manors and garden parties, trading gossip without a second thought. All the while, he had been stuck at Privet Drive, surrounded by bland walls and walking on eggshells.
His only solace was that Draco had also been out of the loop. While the others were together, Draco had been dragged through France and Spain, just as isolated in his own way. That thought settled something in Harry's chest. At least he hadn't been the only one left out.
"Anyway," she continued, unfazed, "the rumor going around is that another troll got into the castle after the first one. Supposedly, your brother and his little Gryffindor gang took it down themselves. That's why they got those last-minute points and stole the Cup."
Harry's frown deepened.
"My money's on Granger," Daphne added, buttering her roll with casual precision. "At least she can handle a wand. No way the other two could have taken down a troll."
A ripple of soft laughter passed through the group, but Harry didn't join in. His hands rested flat on the table. He stared at his plate, trying to school his expression. The lie bothered him more than the mockery.
Theo turned to him suddenly, eyes lighting up with curiosity. "Wait. Did he ever tell you what really happened?"
His voice was sharper now, and he leaned forward slightly, eager. Even a few of the upper years nearby had gone quiet, their attention flicking toward Harry. Harry paused. He could feel the pressure of their eyes, waiting. He couldn't tell them the truth. That he had been there. That it hadn't just been a troll. That Voldemort had returned in some form and had stood less than a meter away from him. That he had given the Stone away and remembered none of it.
No one would believe him. Worse, they might floo him straight to St. Mungos to see the Mind Healers.
He kept his voice even. "I tried asking. All he told me was that it was top secret. Dumbledore made him swear not to talk about it."
Tracey made a low, skeptical noise.
Draco snorted, loud enough to draw glances from the next section of the table. "Please. Charlie Potter? Keep a secret? He talks constantly about everything. I don't think he's capable of silence."
That earned a few chuckles. Even some of the older Slytherins smirked knowingly.
"Must be some secret," Theo said, giving a slow whistle.
"Maybe he had to sign a contract," Draco added, his tone half-mocking. "Or take an Unbreakable Vow to keep his mouth shut."
Harry exhaled and ran a hand through his hair, irritation bleeding into his voice. "I'd really rather talk about anything else. He may have annoyed all of you during the term but I had to spend the entire summer with him."
"That's fair," Daphne said, nodding. "You win."
The tension at the table began to ease, conversation drifting in new directions as laughter and idle chatter returned. But Harry's thoughts didn't follow. His mind stayed fixed on the lie that had settled so easily into the conversation. The story was already changing, reshaping itself into something simple, something safe enough to forget.
He couldn't shake the suspicion that Dumbledore was behind some of it.
A stray troll or two was bad, of course. It would make headlines, raise questions, but eventually, people would move on. What they wouldn't move on from was the truth. The idea that a dark wizard, the Dark Lord himself, had infiltrated Hogwarts, disguised as a teacher, walking the halls and moving freely among the students. That he had gone unnoticed in the very heart of the castle and had stolen a powerful magical artifact, all while under Dumbledore's watch. No headmaster could recover from that. Not even Dumbledore.
Harry stared down at his plate, appetite long gone. The worst part wasn't the lie. It was how easily everyone accepted it.
The moment the Slytherins spilled out of the Great Hall and into the cool corridors leading down to the dungeons, conversation started up at once. Students clustered together by year or by whatever summer gossip was most interesting, voices echoing faintly against the stone walls. As they neared the entrance to the common room, Flint barked over his shoulder, his voice already sharp with authority.
"Farley. First-years."
Gemma didn't even break stride. She swept past him without so much as a glance, walking beside Harry and Draco as if she hadn't heard him at all. Her tone was calm, but there was iron beneath it.
"Not my job this year. Flint's just mad Rosier drew the short stick, and they can't go comparing Quidditch strategies."
Draco gave a low, amused hum. "Sounds about right."
Harry didn't react immediately. His eyes were distant, his pace steady but slow, like his thoughts were moving several steps ahead of him.
"All right there, Harry?" Gemma asked, glancing at him with narrowed eyes. She hadn't slowed, but there was a shift in her tone now. She was less impatient and watching him closely.
Harry gave a half-smile, one too tired to pretend he wasn't bothered. "Just ready to go to bed already."
Gemma studied him for a moment longer. "You don't have to lie to me. I saw your face in the Hall. Whatever that was, it's still rattling around in your head."
Harry didn't answer right away. He kept walking, watching the green light stretch across the stone floor. "It's nothing. Just... tired, like I said."
She let the silence sit for a few seconds. Then, almost conversationally, she said, "You know, tired is what people say when they don't want to be asked again."
Harry huffed, quiet but genuine. "And you're still asking."
"Because I'm not stupid," she replied.
There was no judgment in her voice. Only certainty. She didn't push for more, didn't demand a confession. But she remained beside him, her presence steady where questions might have been. Draco glanced between them, silently puzzled. After a moment, he changed the subject with a casual remark about Quidditch. Harry recognized it as Draco changing the subject, but he didn't mind. Gemma, however, was still watching him. Her eyes tracked his face like she was reading every thought he hadn't said aloud.
By the time they stepped through the stone archway into the underground common room, the rest of the second-years had already spread out ahead of them. The usual murmur of voices filled the space. Students dropped bags onto chairs, stretched out on the black leather sofas beneath the enchanted windows, and claimed their favorite spots by habit. Draco sank into one of the larger armchairs with a practiced sigh, draping his arm along the back as if nothing in the world weighed on him.
"So," Tracey said, sliding onto the couch across from him, "are you finally going to tell us what you were doing in France, or are we supposed to guess based on your mysterious letters and uneven tan?"
Draco gave her a flat look but didn't rise to the bait. "Mother and I were visiting my great-great-aunt. Cassiopeia Black. She's been living in one of the old family villas near Bordeaux."
Daphne tilted her head. "Cassiopeia? The one who never married?"
Draco nodded in confirmation.
Blaise leaned back against the hearth wall, arms crossed. "Didn't she vanish from public life before the war?"
"She did," Draco said. "She hasn't left the villa in years. Mother's the only one she still writes to. We went to check on her, see if she needed anything. It was worse than expected."
"How bad?" Daphne asked.
Draco's mouth tightened. "The place is falling apart. Half the wards are unstable. The house-elves barely speak properly anymore. She won't leave her room. Most days she didn't even recognize us."
Tracey winced. "That's rough."
"She kept asking where Cygnus was," Draco added quietly. "Said he promised to bring her a book from London. Mother didn't have the heart to tell her that he's been dead."
No one had a response to that.
Harry stood nearby, close enough to hear but far enough to pretend he wasn't listening. The politics didn't stick, but the image did. A woman alone in a house too large, surrounded by memory and silence, waiting for someone who wasn't coming. He didn't say anything. As the others shifted the conversation toward easier topics and someone teased Tracey about her annotated Potions notes, Harry turned and headed for the dorms. The laughter behind him felt distant, softened by stone and water and thought.
The extravagant professor strutted into the classroom, his shimmering violet robes billowing behind him. Harry knew immediately they were in for a long lesson.
"Welcome!" Lockhart proclaimed, striking a pose with practiced ease. His smile gleamed as if it had been enchanted for extra sparkle. "I am, of course, Gilderoy Lockhart. Order of Merlin, Third Class; Honorary Member of the Dark Force Defense League; and five-time winner of Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award, though I don't like to talk about that."
Harry barely held back a groan. Beside him, Draco rolled his eyes so dramatically he nearly tipped off his stool.
The lesson spiraled downhill almost immediately. Lockhart, clearly basking in his own introduction, announced they would be participating in a live demonstration. He gestured with great flourish toward a large cage at the front of the room, boasting that he would show them how to subdue a group of freshly caught Cornish Pixies. What followed could only be described as chaos.
The moment the cage door swung open, the pixies burst out in a flurry of color and shrieks. They zipped through the air like miniature rockets, pulling at students' hair, overturning ink bottles, and scattering papers across the room. A textbook hit the floor with a loud thud. One pixie grabbed a piece of chalk and scribbled nonsense across the blackboard while another tore pages from a homework essay, cackling as it soared above the desks.
Pansy shrieked as a pixie tangled itself in her braid. Draco cursed under his breath while swatting at one that had latched onto his sleeve. Theo ducked under a desk as an inkwell exploded overhead. At the front of the room, Lockhart remained utterly unbothered. If anything, he looked pleased.
"See?" he said, gesturing vaguely with his wand. "It's all about confidence! Watch and learn. Peskipiksi Pesternomi!"
He flicked his wand with a flourish. Nothing happened. Harry was positive that whatever the professor cast wasn't a real spell. The pixies, rather than being subdued, only shrieked louder in apparent delight. One of them dive-bombed Lockhart's head, knocking his hair slightly off center. His smile faltered for half a second before he recovered, brushing a feather from his shoulder like it was all going to plan.
"Well!" he said brightly, clapping his hands. "I think that's enough of a demonstration. Who wants to... ah... take a shot at rounding them up?"
Silence.
After a few seconds, he cleared his throat, straightened his robes, and made a brisk path toward the door.
"Best of luck!" he called back. "Homework is two rolls of parchment on the practical applications of my method. Due next week."
Then he left. For a moment, the room was still. Even the pixies seemed surprised. One of them hurled a book at the chalkboard and the spell was broken.
"I hate this class," Draco said, shaking a broken quill off his sleeve as he stormed toward the exit.
Harry didn't argue. He grabbed his bag and followed. They didn't slow down until Filch shouted at them for running in the corridor. No one volunteered to clean up the wreckage, and the pixies were left to wreak havoc in peace. Harry stepped into the corridor beside Draco, adjusting the strap of his bag.
"Gemma was right," he said, not bothering to keep his voice down. "He's a fraud."
Draco glanced over, frowning slightly. "You call Farley by her first name?"
Harry shrugged. "She told me to last year."
Draco looked away, his expression tightening just enough to be noticed. "Well, in that case," he said lightly, though the edge in his voice was unmistakable, "I demand you start calling me Draco. It's only fair."
Harry blinked, surprised by the sudden shift in tone. He hadn't expected Draco to care, let alone notice.
He tilted his head. "You're jealous."
"I'm practical," Draco replied smoothly. "If others hear you calling Farley by her first name and calling me Malfoy, my reputation will suffer. I'm far more important than her."
Harry watched him for a second longer, trying to read the slight tension in his shoulders, the way he avoided eye contact. He almost laughed and decided that Draco must have been trying to find out a way to ask him to be on more familiar terms, but the blonde's pride had prevented him from doing so. He was just taking an opportunity.
"You just want to compete," Harry said, a little more gently.
Draco didn't respond, not directly. He rolled his shoulders and looked ahead again.
"Still," he said, quieter now, "she's not wrong. Lockhart is a fraud."
Harry's smirk faded. There was something oddly comforting about Draco's honesty when it broke through the sarcasm. He glanced down at the floor as they walked, thinking about how easily Gemma had seen through him in the Hall. How she had known exactly what he wasn't saying.
"No," Harry murmured, "she really isn't."
For a moment, neither of them said anything. The air between them felt heavier than it should have. Not hostile, just full of things unspoken. Behind them, someone tried to mimic Lockhart's wand flourish and sent a suit of armor clanging into the wall. The noise echoed through the corridor, followed by a burst of laughter from several students.
Draco rolled his eyes. "This is going to be a very long year."
Harry didn't disagree.
Lockhart wasn't even their biggest problem that year. Not by a long shot.
Lucius Malfoy had become a regular presence around the castle, striding through the halls with an air of effortless authority, silver cane tapping softly against the stone floor. He never looked rushed. He never looked lost. He carried himself like he owned the place. It wasn't just the students who noticed. The professors were clearly uneasy too. One afternoon, on their way to Potions, Harry and Draco rounded a corner and stopped short at the sight of Snape and Lucius standing near the entrance to the dungeons. Their postures were deceptively calm, but their body language told a different story.
If Lucius Malfoy lurking around the castle wasn't unsettling enough, Draco had become increasingly unbearable in the wake of his father's visits. He had taken to boasting about his new position as Slytherin's Seeker at every possible opportunity.
"Really," Draco said smugly at dinner one evening, reclining a little too comfortably in his seat, "Flint said it was pointless to hold tryouts when it was so obvious I was the best candidate."
Across the table, several of the older Slytherins exchanged glances. Not all of them looked amused.
"Obvious, was it?" Adrian Pucey asked, twirling his fork between his fingers with a bored sort of elegance.
Draco's smirk faltered for the briefest moment before he recovered. "Naturally," he said, too quickly. "I mean, who else would they have picked?"
Adrian's eyes drifted toward Terence Higgs, last year's Seeker, who was now quietly pushing peas around his plate. He hadn't said a word since Draco started speaking.
"Flint's favoritism is going to get him hexed one of these days," Terence muttered under his breath, just loud enough to be heard.
"At least we got new brooms out of it," Adrian said with a sigh.
Harry watched the exchange in silence, noting the subtle shift in Draco's posture. His shoulders, once relaxed and boastful, were now drawn tighter. The smugness in his voice hadn't vanished completely, but the shine of certainty had faded. He was a good flyer, everyone who had witnessed flying lessons agreed, but it was clear that not everyone believed he had earned the spot. The gleaming row of Nimbus 2001s lined up in the Quidditch shed might have quieted most protests, but they had not erased the resentment simmering just beneath the surface.
Harry stayed quiet, though part of him couldn't help but think it might have been nice to have proper tryouts. He had enjoyed flying lessons last year, even with everything else going on. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to be on the pitch again, wind in his hair, weightless and in control.
Then again, Flint had made it painfully clear last term that he didn't like Harry one bit. Whether it was because of his last name, his sorting, or something else entirely, the team captain had made no effort to hide his disdain. Staying off Flint's radar wasn't the worst strategy.
Harry had never been fond of visiting the Hospital Wing, but after suffering through the worst headache of his life following a particularly tedious double Potions lesson, he figured a quick visit for a Headache Cure Potion wouldn't hurt. Madam Pomfrey, however, was nowhere in sight when he entered.
Instead, he found Gemma Farley, hunched over a desk surrounded by parchment and vials, furiously scribbling notes while flipping through a Healer's Guide to Spell Damage.
She looked exhausted.
"Gemma?" he greeted, glancing around. "Where's Pomfrey?"
Gemma groaned, rubbing at her temples. "Off dealing with some Hufflepuff who managed to hex himself in the face. What do you need? I can give out low level potions if it's something simple otherwise you'll have to wait."
"Headache Cure Potion," Harry said, dropping onto the nearest cot.
Gemma wordlessly slid a small vial across the desk without even looking up. Harry uncorked it, swallowing the bitter-tasting liquid in one go before watching her carefully.
"You look awful," he observed bluntly.
Gemma sighed heavily, pushing her notes aside and rubbing her hands over her face. "I'm swamped," she admitted. "NEWT classes are brutal, the Hospital Wing's always packed, and prefect duties are a nightmare."
Harry raised a brow. "The first week isn't even over yet."
"Tell me about it." Gemma let her head fall back against her chair. "And do you know what's making it worse?"
"Enlighten me."
She huffed. "Girls keep sneaking out after curfew to try and visit Lockhart."
Harry blinked. "You're joking."
"I wish I was." She scowled. "Homework help, my arse."
Harry didn't doubt her. Lockhart had a disturbingly large fan club among the older years, and the man himself seemed far too pleased with the attention.
"I've had to take more points and hand out more detentions in one week than I did all of last year." Gemma's expression darkened. "And, of course, the idiots don't listen. I caught a group of sixth-years hiding outside his office just last night."
Harry frowned. He had no interest in Lockhart's personal fan club, the fact that students were actively breaking curfew to see him was slightly alarming.
Gemma crossed her arms. "At this rate, I might as well start sleeping in the corridors to catch them."
"Wouldn't recommend it," Harry said dryly. "The dungeons are freezing at night."
Gemma let out a tired snort. "Thanks for the wisdom, Harry."
Harry stood, feeling the potion's effects already dulling the ache behind his eyes.
"Sounds like a disaster," he admitted, adjusting his bag.
"Oh, it is." Gemma sighed, rubbing at her temples again. "And it's only going to get worse."
Harry didn't doubt that for a second.
The Hogwarts Library had always been a place of quiet refuge, but for Harry, it had become something else entirely. It had become a place where he picked apart history, pieced together whispers, and tried to understand the past that no one seemed to want to talk about. The official accounts of the First Wizarding War were frustratingly vague, often focusing more on Dumbledore and the Order of the Phoenix than on Voldemort himself. And that was the problem. No one seemed to know where Voldemort came from.
One day, he simply appeared. His name became something spoken in fear, thanks in part to a clever and dangerous bit of magic tied to it. The Taboo turned his name into a weapon. A dark shadow that gathered followers and spread terror wherever it touched. Then he was defeated. Not by an army or the Ministry but by two toddlers. Harry traced the lettering on the page, his name printed cleanly beside Charlie Potter's.
The next three chapters were filled with speculation. Theories on how they had survived. How they had managed to bring down the most feared dark wizard in living memory. No one knew the truth, not really.
Harry sat hunched over and grabbed another thick, leather-bound tome titled The Dark Reign: A History of the Wizarding War, flipping impatiently through its pages. Another dramatic retelling. Another chapter glorifying Dumbledore. Another list of victims and tragedies without so much as a single clue about how Voldemort became the monster everyone feared.
And yet… nothing spoke about Voldemort's origins. Nothing about how he had risen to power in the first place.
Harry sat hunched over the library table, lit only by the flickering glow of a nearby lamp. He grabbed another thick, leather-bound tome titled The Dark Reign: A History of the Wizarding War and flipped through its brittle pages with growing impatience. Another dramatic retelling. Another chapter glorifying Dumbledore. Another long list of victims and tragedies, told in sweeping language and passive voice, without a single concrete detail about how Voldemort became the monster everyone feared.
Lord Voldemort, the book declared in ornate print, once a whisper in the shadows, rose to power with an insatiable hunger for dominion. His name alone was enough to strike fear into the hearts of wizards and muggles alike.
Harry turned another page, then another, hoping for something useful, but all he found were vague references to followers, uprisings, and battles fought in forests and alleyways. All written with the same tone of helpless awe. The books treated Voldemort like a force of nature. A storm that had struck without warning. As if he had never been a person at all. No mention of his childhood. No clues about where he had come from or what had twisted him into something dark enough to tear the world apart. Just page after page of consequences, with none of the cause.
He leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking under him, and stared down at the book like it had personally offended him. He wanted to understand. Not just how Voldemort had died, but how he had become the Dark Lord.
Harry ran a hand through his hair, pushing the book aside and reaching for another. This one was thicker, dustier, the kind that looked like it hadn't been touched in years. The Making of a Dark Lord: A Psychological Profile of You-Know-Who.
His fingers trailed across the faded gold lettering before he flipped it open. The introduction was dense and clinical, full of lofty phrases and cautious qualifiers.
It is the author's belief that Lord Voldemort's hold over his followers stemmed not merely from fear, but from an almost preternatural talent for psychological manipulation. Witness accounts consistently reference his uncanny ability to twist desires, sow paranoia, and exploit emotional vulnerabilities with surgical precision. Even in his absence, his influence lingered, so profound that uttering his name became an act of defiance.
Harry skimmed the rest of the page. It was all speculation. No names. No sources. No origin story. Just more dramatic phrasing wrapped in academic language, circling the same unanswered question over and over.
What made a monster?
He sighed and turned the page anyway, scanning the footnotes with a faint hope that something real might be buried there. A stray name. A date. Anything grounded. People didn't just become what Voldemort had become. Not without reason. Not without history. They weren't born monsters. They were made.
A shadow fell across the table.
"Potter," a smooth voice drawled, low and amused. "Don't tell me you're actually enjoying that garbage?"
Harry looked up to see Blaise Zabini standing nearby, one brow raised in quiet judgment as he took in the stack of books Harry had accumulated. Titles like Dark Legacies, Psychomagical Trauma and Magical Pathology, and The Making of a Dark Wizard were fanned out across the table like a collection of case studies.
Harry leaned back slightly and tilted the cover of his current book so Blaise could read it.
Blaise's lips twitched. "A psychological profile? Are you planning to become a Dark wizard or diagnose one?"
Harry smirked faintly. "Maybe both."
Blaise let out a soft chuckle and slid into the seat across from him. He reached for another book from the pile, Bloodlines of Britain: The Lost and the Noble, and flipped through a few pages with casual disinterest before setting it down with a bemused shake of his head.
"You do realize," he said lightly, "that if you keep this up, people are going to start talking."
Harry already knew that. He had heard the whispers. Felt the glances. Slytherins weren't stupid. They noticed patterns. And more than a few of them had started noticing that Harry Potter was spending an inordinate amount of time buried in books about Dark magic, bloodline theory, and Voldemort himself.
"Let them talk," Harry said flatly, turning another page.
Blaise studied him for a moment, head tilted slightly, as if trying to decide whether Harry was serious or just provoking for the fun of it.
Then he smiled slowly. "Careful, Potter. You're starting to sound like you belong in this house."
Harry looked up and met his gaze. He could have brushed it off but he didn't.
"Maybe I do," he said instead.
Blaise laughed, but there was a flicker of something more in his expression. A glint of interest. A flicker of recognition.
"Now that's the kind of answer that gets people nervous."
Harry didn't respond. His gaze drifted back down to the page in front of him, eyes tracking the words without really reading them. Let them be nervous. He wasn't here to make friends, and he wasn't digging through this mess of a legacy because he admired it.
Blaise didn't leave. He drifted a few seats down, pulling out a half-finished essay and a small inkwell from his bag. He dipped his quill and began to write with smooth, precise strokes, but every so often, Harry could feel his eyes flick in his direction. Not openly watching but like someone cataloging a variable they hadn't quite figured out yet.
Harry ignored him. Most of the Slytherins looked at him that way. It was nothing new. He had learned quickly that in the snake den, people didn't stare unless they were gathering information. Watching meant deciding whether you were useful, dangerous, or both.
He turned another page. Then another. He adjusted the angle of the book and leaned in again, eyes scanning paragraph after paragraph for anything useful. His hand twitched toward the next tome in the stack, ready to keep moving, to keep pulling threads. He didn't even know what he was hoping to find anymore. Something small that would explain what he had seen.
The shadow in Knockturn Alley. The voice like ice wrapped in silk. The words slid uninvited through his thoughts, as cold and undeniable as the hand beneath his chin.
You already know who I am, little serpent.
Harry's jaw tightened. He shoved the memory back down and forced his focus to the page, but the words blurred.
The Voldemort described in these books was a storm. He was chaos made flesh. Entire towns destroyed. Families destroyed. Bodies piling up in forests, in fields, in doorways. His rise and reign were always reported the same way, by fire and terror and blood.
That wasn't the man Harry had met.
The Voldemort he encountered hadn't lifted a wand. He hadn't made a scene. He had barely even raised his voice. There were no threats or violence. He had walked through the darkest part of the city like he belonged there, and no one had dared stop him. He had left behind a silence, not dead bodies.
Harry let out a frustrated sigh and slumped back in his chair. Blaise didn't look up, but his quill paused briefly before continuing its steady scratch across the parchment.
Harry rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his palm. He could still feel the phantom weight of that encounter like a bruise beneath the skin. Voldemort hadn't tried to kill him. Hadn't even seemed interested in hurting him. He had looked at Harry the way someone looked at a valuable thing. Something he was waiting to collect.
That was worse, in a way. He hadn't come for blood and Harry needed to know why.
Disclaimer:
I disagree whole heartedly with many of JK Rowling's views.
Protect Trans Youth.
I do not own Harry Potter, any of its characters or world.
This is a reupload of a story with the same name and plot. Things have been heavily edited and expanded. Please enjoy.