Nox

Nox "Darkness"

Ante bellum. "Before the war."

--..--..--

It was there again. Amongst the smell of old parchment and musty books -- power. Each page that was turned, each word that was read, each book that was handled in my grasp, held a strange feeling of powerful magic all its own -- raw, uncontrolled magic. Yet, perhaps it was controlled in a sense. Perhaps it just controlled whomever used it. Perhaps... It was waiting for somebody to wield it, only to have themselves wielded in turn.

I held a quill in my hand, poised over a fresh piece of parchment. Like so many before my time, I had quested to control this strange power. What I didn't know -- didn't realize, foolishly -- was that it quested to control me, to use me. I never could have foreseen what was to happen if it did so.

How did it start? I fear I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when I stopped using the magic for research and began using it for my own ends. I was supposed to learn from it. Fight fire with fire and leave the dark, seductive curls of black magic when Voldemort was defeated.

It was what I told Dumbledore that windy day in October. I told him that using dark magic was the only possible way I could kill Voldemort, but he wouldn't hear it. I'm sure he thought that the light could always win -- typical Dumbledore. He couldn't accept otherwise. How many times did I explain that I couldn't defeat somebody as powerful as him with light magic? How many times did I yell, scream, and complain when he refused to give me access to the restricted section? How loudly did I storm out of his office when he told me that I was banned from using it, and that Hermione and Ron were as well? How angrily did I slam the door as he said so calmly and clearly that there was nothing dark enough in the restricted section anyway, and that it was not the road to venture down on? How seethingly did I begin to sit and contemplate my ways around it?

I had always told Ron and Hermione what was going on, so I sat them down in the common room and told them about the particular encounter, as well as what I planned to do about it. Hermione disagreed with me wholeheartedly, as I expected she would, and Ron was vaguely uneasy about the whole thing. They both thought I wouldn't succeed. They both thought I couldn't make it work. They both thought it was overly dangerous, and that I was making wrong decision. However, at that point I no longer cared what they thought.

I did what I felt I needed to do.

Perhaps... Perhaps it was the wrong choice to make -- the wrong road to turn down.

How was I to know things would not go as I originally planned?

I was only seventeen and stupid. I was only the Boy-Who-Lived.

I only wanted to begin practicing the Dark Arts.