The Music of the Night - Voldemort's Other Side

The Music of the Night

~ Voldemort's Other Side ~

Night time sharpens, heightens each sensation

Ah...I am alive again, and free to roam the night!

At last I can feel the tingle of stars on my skin like freezing droplets of water, and see the shimmer of moonlight cast its silvery-blue glow about the world.

Darkness wakes and stirs imagination

For thirteen long, wearisome years I wandered this earth, unable to die yet unable to live properly. My body was destroyed, my reputation and evil vanquished. At least, that is what the Mudbloods and Muggle Friends thought.

Only Dumbledore, that ancient fool, realised the truth. I was exiled, yes, and my spirit had flown...but I was still very much a threat to them. I needed but a willing host, and I would have power again.

Silently the senses abandon their defences

They are so fond of their opposites when describing everything...good and evil, white and black, night and day, light and dark, Gryffindor and Slytherin, God and Satan. These are mere contrasts, not opposites.

Could they offer me the opposite of music? Ah, music...the only thing I ever agreed with Dumbledore on was music. It is a magic truly beyond anything wizards could hope to do. Night is the only other thing more magical than music.

Helpless to resist the notes I write

At night, your friendly, warming sun fades away, replaced by the eerie chill of the celestial bodies that are ever present, but hardly ever seen. Some witches and wizards have become enamoured of the night, and called it "a velvet sky studded with wishing stars."

How can they hope to describe such ineffable perfection and coldness with pitiful words?

The word "velvet" implies warmth, softness and comfort. The night sky is as cold and bitter as the polar icecaps! And as for "wishing" stars? They are a nonentity, every bit as real as a crumple-horned Snorlack. Why wish on a star when you could go out and seize what you want all on your own?

For I compose the music of the night.

The night calls to those who most belong to it...werewolves, my Death Eaters, unicorns, vampires and of course, myself. Night is a song that few can hear or understand, but to those that heed its solemn bolero it is euphoric and every bit as thrilling as a glorious victory. Think of it as Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, if you will, but it is far more exquisite, and its solemnity is tenfold that of Beethoven's masterpiece.

The stars pick out light, delicate notes like a piano or harp, and the wispy clouds provide a low chorus of strings as they cross the moon. The moon herself sings beautifully, shaming the nightingale with her command of melody and harmony. Trees rustle their leaves, listening intently to the Chanson de Nuit, helpless in its grasp and unable to break free.

Slowly, gently, night unfurls its splendour

Such is my power, the power of the Imperius Curse. It is the Chanson de Nuit in its own way, and only those in love with the light of the garish sun and of gaudy daylight can resist it.

Grasp it; sense it, tremulous and tender

Why accept the morning and afternoon at all? They are too bright, too dazzling for my tastes. Light reveals all, showing every part of the world in sickeningly intense colour. However, even the power of the noonday sunlight cannot lift all darkness. Shadows constantly exist, only too willing to prove that darkness is eternal, and that light is fleeting.

Hearing is believing

Give me blues, greens, silvers and black! They hide all that is wrong and cruel about the world, and cloak everything in a mantle of magnificent dusk.

Every "good" wizard has an intrinsic mistrust of night, and of darkness. They fear it and abhor it. Could it be that they fear that which, if discovered, would be enough to turn them away from the so-called "path of righteousness"?

Why trudge on that path at all? Come with me, dance the Devil's Dance at midnight to the sound of music only the dark of heart can hear.

Music is deceiving

You say that we hide our true purposes in the night, and blame everything on our darkness of heart.

We are pure evil, you say. Perhaps this is true.

I have always believed that there is only power, and those too weak to seek it should be cast aside. Good and evil are used as excuses to make each side feel better. Really there are only two sides, both with different points of view that sully each from the other.

Hard as lightning, soft as candlelight

Can such wonder and reverential beauty be evil or deceptive?

How can such heart-wrenching flawlessness be wrong?

One moment as wild and abandoned as a werewolf's howl, the next as gentle and alluring as a unicorn foal.

Dare you trust the music of the night?

We call it the Devil's Dance, for that is what is expected of us. We do not worship the Muggle Devil, nor shall we ever.

We only hail to the Chanson de Nuit, and my Death Eaters adulate only me.

Close your eyes, for your eyes will only tell the truth,

Do not listen to all the horror propaganda Dumbledore and his lackeys may spread about me. I do only what is necessary to achieve my goals!

If there is a problem in your path, you get rid of it, am I correct?

And the truth isn't what you want to see!

It is the same with myself. If I see a problem, rather than let it develop I nip it in the bud. James and Lily Potter stood in my way of stopping my only adversary...and see where it got them?

True, the infant Potter may have been able to defeat me, but he is still no match for my music.

In the dark it is easy to pretend that the truth is what it ought to be.

For when you dance to the telltale melody of the Chanson de Nuit, beauty is truth, and truth is beauty, and hence beauty and truth become freedom, and vice versa.

Does Potter possess such power?

He does not. He cannot understand music because his heart is full of phoenix song. It is beautiful, but eerie.

Softly, deftly, music shall caress you.

The Chanson de Nuit has existed since the dawn of time, long prior to the birth of the first phoenix and before any musician first put pen to paper to invent rules and systems for music.

Some have said that our Chanson de Nuit is a lie. We say that if you cannot hear it, you are too much enamoured with daylight. If something this beautiful seems to you to be too beautiful to be true, then your world - your beliefs and your sunlight - are cruel.

Fear it, feel it secretly possess you.

Let music, night and darkness envelop you and chide away these foolish notions of right and wrong!

Dance, and cast away the concept of morality and duty, for these are but mental laws written to restrain you from being that which they most fear.

Open up your mind, let your fantasies unwind

Have not you always wondered what it would be like to truly be free from the confinement of your laws and what society bids as acceptable behaviour?

If there were no repercussions, would you not cheerfully murder someone or rob Gringott's?

Think of that which you most want...and I would stake my newfound life that if there were no law, rules or regulations you would already have it.

In this darkness that you know you cannot fight,

All wizards and witches know that the darkness lies dormant within their hearts. All that it requires to consume your hearts like ivy coiling about some fair rose is an idea planted within your head.

The darkness of the music of the night.

Your laws contain the seeds of their own destruction.

This you have always known and sought to deny. Why deny the truth? Does it hurt so to realise that your perfect world is but a detestable gilded cage?

Close your eyes start a journey to a strange new world,

We have cast off these shackles and fashioned our own world, which I lead. True, I may be compelled to wound, torture, control or even kill some people, but it is merely out of love for the music of the night.

To protect this music from those who would seek to tame it, I must eradicate all those who threaten it.

Leave all thoughts of the world you knew before

How can we miss what we have never known, you ask?

Well, my dears, there is no need to bite the chocolate frog to know that it is sweet, after all.

People have told you it is sweet and good to the very last morsel, but you are afraid to try it. You have heard bad things about chocolate, like that it makes you fat and can give you skin problems.

Forget these fears, unwrap that delicacy and eat it. Feast on its taste and savour the knowledge that people everywhere hold you in wonder, awe and even fear.

Am I being too metaphorical?

Close your eyes and let music set you free!

And how will you bear to set aside the rules you have lived your life against for so long?

Think on it like this. Before there were laws, we only killed to survive. Now, you kill as revenge and out of fury. No animal has ever done so. Beasts accept when they are bested and back down.

Be like the animals, and run free in forests under moonlight!

Only then can you belong to me.

Once you have accepted that we were never meant to create such structured societies, you can begin to hear the Chanson. It is well worth waiting for, my dears, just like your own selves.

Floating, falling, sweet intoxication...

Out of the shadows it comes at first, approaching like a tentative predator. Finally it springs, and catches you unawares, digging in its claws in an ecstasy of sweet pain that has you begging and pleading for more while it spins your soul around, reforming and refashioning it in its image.

Touch me, trust me, savour each sensation,

When finally you have succumbed to the Chanson de Nuit, it releases you weeping and wounded into the night. Desperate for comfort, you find it in the moon's pale-featured face and in the stars undiscerning glance.

You are one of these nameless, faceless beings. As you stare at them, awed, they return the gaze.

Let the dream begin,

The stars will welcome you to their ranks, and they will spell your name in the sky for all to read and wonder for eons to come. These eons belong to us, les Enfants de Nuit, and they are ruled by the Chanson.

Let your darker side give in

Soon you will understand that resistance is futile. Night will always fall, and shadows will never fade. No matter how many lights you shine in an attempt to quench the darkness, your shadow falls behind you.

You can never escape this bittersweet dream, and you will never wish to.

To the power of the music that I write -

Those who seek to escape may do so if they please, but they may expect a sharp and fatal pain between their shoulders as they flee.

Just as the Ministry of Magic seeks to destroy us for abandoning the pathetic pretext of society, we shall terminate those who seek to abandon the Chanson.

The power of the music of the night.

Now you are one of us! The music and the night await you. And as the dusk descends her purple cloak about us...

You alone can make my song take flight!

Help me make the music of the night.

...aren't you glad you gave in at last, my dears?