Choices

Choices

Chapter Four: Riddle Me This

2007 - Azkaban, high security cell

I always knew it would come down to this. Just you and me, Harry. You and me.

You have wonderful eyes. Like well-honed surgical knives, to any mortal who dares to meet your gaze. I rather suspect that they fear you more than they ever did me. With good cause, I'd say. That's power, Harry.

You make a good ruler, I hear. Benevolent, persuasive, and charismatic, like velvet-wrapped steel. Most still don't even suspect what you have become. Addicted to power and the need to control. It's a heady feeling, especially for someone who has restrained himself so much as you have.

But you had good intentions once, didn't you? At the beginning, you only wanted to defeat me. You naively thought that with me gone, everything would be fine. I believe you discovered the brutal truth concerning that particular assumption the hard way. And then, you had to put everything right. Because that is what you do. That is what you are.

You waltz into people's lives and make them players in your own game. They do not even notice how they've fallen into your world until it's too late to get back out again, and by that point, who'd even want to?

Is everything all right now, Harry? Is the world complete and perfect now that you are its Dictator? Have you solved everyone's problems? You can't live for everyone, you know.

By Slytherin, I must sound like that doddering Muggle-lover. I apologize for getting so sentimental. Perhaps my age is finally catching up with me.

You should hate him. If it weren't for that old fool's meddling, the burden would never have been heaped on you. A boy defeated the Dark Lord as a child? Let's use him as a shield next time trouble comes calling. No matter how young he might be, or how much he hates being special.

And now you can't stop, even if you want to.

Ah, but Dumbledore's gone, isn't he. Pity, that. Nobody can elude death for long. If you had your way, I would have been dead years ago. But the Ministry wanted me alive. Wanted to keep the Dementors in Azkaban, to keep being hostile to the giants, to keep things as they were. They were addicted to the power they had. Martial Law. The Minister was a foolish man. You should agree with me, as you killed him yourself. On charges of treason, was it? You have better perception than most, and a bitter sense of irony to match it, if I do say so myself.

Even as gifted as you are, you cannot heal the world. You are not the Messiah those Muggles speak about, just a very gifted boy with a destiny you can't escape. However, if there is nothing else left, do remember the last Gateway.

Goodbye. Now that I am nothing more than a Squib, the Killing curse should be sufficient. I shall be waiting for you by the gate of Hell, Harry Potter. After all, the key is really quite useless after the lock has been destroyed.