Published at 27th of May 2024 12:12 am

Chapter 173: Of Evil and Death

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15 December 1993, Nurmengard

Sirius Black woke with a start. He had another nightmare. It wasn't really a surprise, and the nightmare was always the same: they were surrounded by countless Death Eaters and mercenaries, realizing that Wormtail had betrayed them. Four members of the dark lord's inner circle were there, three that he knew well, and one that he did not expect. Bellatrix was as mad as ever, laughing with glee as she killed any muggle or opposing wizard in sight. Her husband and his brother were no different, like wild animals killing people for the sake of just killing, enjoying the power it gave them. They did not share Bellatrix's madness, just her bloodlust.

Back then, the dog Animagus pitied her as much as he hated her. The Black Madness was very real, especially for those whose family magic is especially strong. Alas, madness and greatness are two sides of the same coin. It was a common saying in their family that every time a new Black was born, the gods tossed a coin in the air and the world held its breath to see how it landed. Sirius had always prided himself in the fact that his coin did not land on madness. How wrong he was.

It was not the battle that broke him. James dying in a fight would have hurt, severely, but seeing Lily Potter with a neutral expression on her face, as if it was carved out of ice, taking out a knife and stabbing James, her own husband, in the back. She betrayed her own husband, a man who worshipped the ground that she walked on, a man who had fathered her own son, and did it from the back. It was anguish like someone had burned him from the inside out.

In a way, she had. He didn't really have time to process this, since everything quickly turned into flames afterwards. All he remembered was his pain, and he used his anger to distract himself from it all. It was hard to describe what happened to him except that he was on the other side. He knew that he was in a very different place, where he could be consumed at any time if he was just distracted for a moment.

It was to think, on the other side. But for James, he persisted. It felt like an eternity, but slowly but surely, one day, he saw the world that he was in, if only for just a moment. He was barely more than a spectre, but someone had tracked him down. He didn't recognize him at first. He was older than the last photo ever taken of him, but there was no denying who he was. Gellert Grindelwald was there, and for some reason, deigned to help him. Sirius didn't know what happened next, only that sometime later, he had a body. Oh, the pain from the other side was still there, permanently present, but not as severe. And just like that, he decided to leave without saying a word. He would not be another man's weapon.

It was easy to slip between worlds for just a moment, ignoring wards. And after looking around, he realized that it took him years to return and what he was met with, disgusted him. People forgot about James, about Lily's betrayal. Hell, she was celebrated as a war hero. Dumbledore had chosen Frank's brat as a propaganda machine to spread his agenda. Wormtail, the traitor, had disappeared, and there was no news of Moony, who had left them just after graduation. He had learned that the headmaster had knowingly let the Potters' and Longbottom's locations be leaked in an effort to fulfil some mad prophecy.

It was probably then that his madness started. At least, he hoped it did. He was already unstable by the constant pain, but to see his friend, the brother that he had chosen, disregarded like this, and the world that he fought for did not change in any way, it broke him.

He realized that day, that Dumbledore, Voldemort, Death Eaters, they were all diseases, infecting the world, diseases that infected the world that James fought for. And so, he kept curbing the disease, one person at a time. He was largely successful for years until he realized that Harry Potter had come to Hogwarts.

The dog Animagus didn't know what to make of him, at first, was he James' son, or Lily's? He tried to stay away, to spare himself the pain of remembering his friend or his betrayer. That was until he saw him. He looked so much like his father… Alas, the moment he glanced at his eyes, he restrained the urge to throttle him.

He had her eyes.

He did not mean the colour, but what hid underneath. James' eyes were warm, always playful and mischievous. Lily's were always cold. Her smiles never reached them, and her son seemed to share that. He wanted to kill the boy, to prevent another Lily. To prevent the death of another James. Alas, he didn't think he could hurt James' son…

But all thoughts of sparing the boy were moot when he recognized what the boy was.

What she had turned him into.

Oh, he never expected Lily Evans to be that much of a bitch. Alas, the boy was a threat, one that he needed to neutralize. He would have killed him on the spot, but there were too many people. And it's not like Sirius would have been able to kill the boy if he had to constantly phase to dodge spells. Also, there were going to be too many innocent deaths, and James wouldn't like that, would he?

He was already planning on how to kill the boy when he heard the news, whispers of chambers of secrets being opened, of someone stealing his kill. It didn't take long to track down who was responsible. Bella had always complained about her precious Dark Lord entrusting Lucius Malfoy with an artefact like the one she guarded in the bank. The Malfoy head had bragged about it to her one day.

Lucius had tried to kill James' son. No one was allowed to do it but him.

In the end, an opportunity presented itself when Azkaban was destroyed. He could easily have his distraction using Rookwood and Dolohov. They were scum anyway. And by doing this, he made sure that the innocent bystanders, the children of Hogwarts would not be hurt in a fight between him and the defenders of the castle. This meant that he could just kill the boy, relish as his eyes lost their light, as Lily's eyes lost their light. James would have been sad at the loss of his son, at the end of his bloodline, but it was necessary.

Alas, he was distracted by an old friend returning. He underestimated the brat. And he paid the price for it. He was too angry; he was too rash to care, too close to his goal to pay attention, and it had cost him dearly. He had to go to the other place to heal, and he had forgotten how much it hurt. He never really recovered his flesh with every healing. And now, he was barely more than a pile of ash.

At least he was when he shook hands with Grindelwald and agreed to join him. He doesn't remember much after that. He got up and marvelled at the flawless skin that wasn't there previously. It wasn't a true body; he knew it definitely wasn't. The constant place of the other place was still there. His mind was clearer than it had for a very long time, but he knew that the madness was still there, in the back of his head, like a tiger ready to pounce.

"Enjoying your new form?" a familiar voice asked with an amused tone.

He turned to see Gellert Grindelwald smiling at him, "This is different from last time…"

"I had time to finish the ritual. You're still barely more than a spectre, your soul anchored to the dimension Lily Potter accidentally banished you in, this is a projection like your first body, only healthier. The more damage you'll receive, the more you'll turn back into your form of ash, or worse, back to the other side. You will not be able to cast magic and I still do not recommend getting hurt needlessly. It takes a substantial amount of resources to heal you. I can only hope that you would be worth the investment."

The dog Animagus looked away, unsure of what the Dark Lord was getting at, "I know, I owe you and everything…"

"Oh, don't be like that, young Sirius. I did not save you so that you might owe me. I saved you to show you the truth."

"What truth? You want to conquer another continent or something?"

The dark lord snorted, "My dear child, conquering the world meant very little to me. Power means very little to me. It's so utterly meaningless. I wanted to save the world."

"With mass murder?" Sirius asked with an incredulous tone, not that he was any different. Except that he had the excuse of being mad...

"I was eleven years old when I killed my first man. He was just some muggle that was trying to force himself on my mother. I remember the look on his face when the light went out behind his eyes. Such a sudden change, almost imperceptible between life and death. I felt ashamed; I had stolen from this man the most precious gift of all: life. But I also felt something else, pride. Because I had killed someone who had sought to do unspeakable things to my family. And then, I realized that what I had done was necessary. You see, I had replaced evil with death, and that is the base of everything I worked for. I have killed thousands of people since then, and the world is better off for it."

"You wanted to kill off all muggles…"

Grindelwald shook his head, "They were building weapons of mass destruction, weapons that would kill all of us, the moment they knew of our existence. I'm a seer, you know, and I saw what they were going to lead the world into, what they would create. And I can see it now, what they turned the world into, that the greens of our lands were turning into the grey of their steel. One day, they will find us, and there will be a war, unlike anything we would have seen before. I wanted to get rid of them permanently, to save our world. Albus liked the softer approach, a temporary measure at best, by having wizards near every weapon of mass destruction, stopping the muggles from destroying us all in a fit of madness. It has worked so far, but all it takes is a single mistake, and we all die burning and screaming. But that is the past, and now we must think of the future…"

"What future," Sirius asked.

"Yours. Do you still feel guilt at your friend's death?"

And just like that Sirius felt his anger and madness resurge once more, urging him to kill everyone in sight in his rage. After all, none of this would have happened if he hadn't convinced James to trust the rat, or even suggested that he ask out Lily after he had given up in his seventh year. It was all his fault.

No. It was the bitch's fault. It was the brat's fault. He needed to kill them all, burn them, and watch them writhe in agony…

He suppressed the impulse and spoke truthfully, "My anger outweighs my guilt."

And wasn't that an understatement?

The dark lord shook his head sadly, "You have learned to bury your guilt with anger and madness. I will teach you to confront it and face the truth. You know how to spread terror; I will teach you how to become fear itself. You have learned to spread chaos; I will teach you how to truly become unpredictable. You have killed many people; I will teach you to become Death itself."

The dog Animagus listened, animated by the dark lord's speech, before peering out of the window and he saw a man shackled asking for mercy…

"Who is he?" he simply asked.

Grindelwald walked to see him, "Ah, a blood mage from Romania, I believe. He sacrificed an entire village of muggles in the vain hope of summoning a demon to this plane. Now, he is a prisoner in this prison, my prison, I suppose."

"What will happen to him?"

"He will die. Some magics, and some crimes, are simply too vile to be allowed to do. With magic comes responsibilities. You have lived your life in the light, in the public. I am giving you a glimpse of the side that Albus liked to ignore. Monsters thrive in the indulgence of society's understanding. After he defeated me, I was lost, until I found a purpose, to protect the magical world from the shadows, prolonging our inevitable war against muggles, hoping that someone would come up with something to save our race."

Sirius stood silent at that proclamation to which Grindelwald answered with a small grin, "James Potter's death was not your fault, young Sirius. It was his own."

How dare he?

How dare he disrespect James? His brother, his friend, his pillar.

He didn't think twice about it when he lunged at the Dark Lord with a scream of rage, who seemingly vanished into thin air, making him stumble towards the wall. The Dark Lord mocked, "Anger does not change the fact that he was blind to his wife's ambitions, to her nature. Or even worse, perhaps he knew, but never chose to act."

"She was his wife…" he protested when he gritted his teeth.

"And were you willfully blind to your mother's nature when you ran away from your home?"

"I knew that my mother was a bitch…"

The man's eyes were still merciless, "Knowledge is meaningless without the will to act on it. The will to act is far more important than anything. You had that. Your friend did not."

With another snarl, he leapt towards the Dark Lord once more, whose eyes looked pitying, "You're stronger than your friend."

"You didn't know him," Sirius simply said.

"Yes, but I know the rage that drives you. That impossible anger and madness strangling the grief until the memory of your loved ones just becomes poison in your veins. And one day, you catch yourself wishing that the person you loved had never existed just to spare yourself the pain."

Sirius calmed down after that. Grindelwald had never looked so human. Instead of lashing out, he chose to calmly give him a questioning look, to which the dark lord chuckled, "I wasn't always a Dark Lord. I have experienced love only to lose it. Like you, I have learned that those without decency must be fought without hesitation, without pity. Your anger gives you great power. But if you let it, it will destroy you, just as it almost did me."

"What stopped it?"

"A higher purpose, something to strive towards. I took my vengeance long ago and it has left me empty."

"I am not letting the brat live. Not after what his mother had done. Not after the risk that he is," Sirius snarled back.

"I am not telling you to give up on your vengeance. And in time, the boy will die. But killing a boy is not a true purpose, at least not one to base your life around. What I am offering you is something better, something more. Albus Dumbledore failed you. How would you feel about destroying everything that he has ever worked for, the fake world that he is trying to build."

"How?"

The Dark Lord smirked, "That's not for today. First, you must learn. I have a lot to teach you after all."

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