The Darkness That Lives Within

A/N: Short, I know, but it’s just the prologue.

The darkness called to him, soothing, calming. He watched the darkness as it called, unsure of what he would decide if he was to enter it. Reaching out blindly, he felt warmth, soothing warmth. Sighing, he let the darkness claim him, heard its reassurances.

"Come with me, my love, and you will see so many things you have only dreamed of," it called, coaxing. He let go of his reservations, followed the call, let the darkness claim him as theirs. Unafraid, he went willingly with the dark.

"Relax, my love, we will not harm you. You are our master, you will understand us more if you do not fight us," the darkness sighed, wrapping its protecting arms around the raven-head.

Another watched the transformation avidly, sighing happily as the darkness claimed what it wanted. Knowing that the servants would never harm the raven-head, he watched the darkness until he could no longer see it. Smiling lightly, a platinum-blond male let his Sight leave the room, content to wait until school started to see just how much the man that the darkness had claimed as their master would change.

In the darkness, the raven-haired male swam slowly, eyes half-closed with fatigue and happiness. Feeling the shadows wrap tighter around him, he let the dark soothe him to sleep. Unknown to him, letting the dark do as it wanted had sounded off the alarms that a certain Headmaster had set around his house.

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At a school quite a distance away from Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Headmaster Dumbledore looked quite grave, as though his favorite toy had been destroyed - or like the supposed savior of the Wizarding World had just died.

Severus Snape, Potions Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, had brought back the news that Harry Potter, the savior of the Wizarding World, had died in a recent attack on the house he had been staying in. Dumbledore knew that there had to be more to the story, but couldn't get his Professor to talk.

Since the day that Severus had told him the horrid news, the Professor had disappeared. Albus wondered where he might have gone, but had no idea. All he could do was sit in his office and hope that the news had been false, hope that his weapon wasn't dead...because if the savior of the wizarding world was dead, then the Light had lost.

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Severus Snape was residing in Snape manor when he had been called to investigate the source of the alarms at Privet Drive, Little Whinging going off. The alarms, the Headmaster had told him, were set to go off only when something had happened to Harry.

He hadn't expected to find what he had. It appeared that the Boy-Who-Lived-Through-Too-Many-Things had finally given up his fight against the shadows that had haunted his life for far too long. Unknown to Albus, Severus knew that Harry Potter wasn't dead, though he wasn't exactly alive either. The shadows that had been stalking the boy had practically killed him, but only so that he could be reborn as their true Master.

"Yes...you understand us..." the shadows had whispered to him, had reached out gently. “Protect him, Severus Snape; he needs to be protected. He is vulnerable right now...he needs your protection."

He had brought the young man to his manor for protection, and had told Albus that the youngster had died - true enough, he supposed, as the shadows had put Harry into a protective sleep, deep enough for his injuries to heal, but not deep enough to completely kill him.

Shrugging absently, he checked up on the man; deciding that Harry would be out for a few days, if not a few weeks, he asked the shadows, politely of course, to let him know when the raven-haired male woke. Leaving the room, he continued contacting his fellow Slytherins, letting them know what had happened.