Harry Potter And The Descent Into Darkness

Chapter 18

Getting away from Ron was easy. Harry simply timed the use of the time-turner really well. As far as Ron could tell, Harry simply slipped away to use the loo, and came back a few minutes later.

In reality, he had gone to the manor and spent two and a half hours reading while Voldemort meditated on the floor. The magic had done that peaking thing again about two hours in, and Harry had found himself sitting with the open book on his lap, discarded, with his eyes closed and head leaning back against Voldemort's chair. He let his mind get lost in the delicious lull of Voldemort's magic and literally lost track of time. It wasn't until the peak in the magics decreased suddenly, that Harry was jerked out of his stupor.

The book he brought was in pretty bad condition, but it didn't seem like it would be a devastating loss if he somehow botched the spell up, so he wasn't terribly worried when the two of them finally got down to actually practicing the spell.

The first few times he tried it, the restoration seemed to be exceedingly slow. Voldemort seemed to instantly understand what Harry was doing wrong and explained it in such a way that just made it all make perfect sense.

"You would have been a brilliant teacher," Harry mused as he cast the spell on the book and it began to mend and restore itself to order.

Voldemort actually snorted. "Yes, well, tell that to the old man," he drawled.

Harry looked up at him with his brow furrowed in confusion. "Dumbledore? What do you mean?"

Voldemort paused and gave Harry a long look as if he were contemplating something.

"I applied to work as a professor at Hogwarts... many years ago. Actually, I applied twice."

Harry gaped at him, stunned by this revelation. Voldemort – the Voldemort – had applied to teach at Hogwarts?

"When?" Harry asked, incredulously.

"The first time was the year after I graduated. Professor Dippet was still the Headmaster at the time, and the old Defense teacher, Professor Merrythought was retiring that year. She had thought I would be a shoe-in for the position and even personally recommended me to replace her. However Professor Dippet thought I was too young and told me to come back in a few years after having had more life experience," Voldemort finished with a sarcastic sneer.

"And the second time?" Harry asked eagerly. With every word Voldemort spoke, Harry felt like some ravenous monster had reared up inside him, and the monster was starving for information. These little tidbits of information about the Dark Lord's past was like gold to him, and he couldn't even rationally say why.

"The second time was about ten years later. Dumbledore had gotten the Headmaster's job by then. The man never liked me. He was the only teacher I had at Hogwarts who mistrusted me. I knew there was next to no chance he would award me the position, but it had become available again and I had to try."

Harry blinked in confusion for a minute before he finally voiced the one word that just kept repeating in his mind.

"Why?"

Voldemort was quiet for some time, and Harry wondered if he would actually get an answer.

"It was the only other thing I ever wanted to do... I suppose... I suppose there was some tiny part of me that considered it as my one and only out." He paused in thought for a moment before smirking widely. "Ah, if only the old fool had any idea what he missed out on. He was truly convinced that the only reason I would apply for the job was as part of some larger, evil scheme. I had already begun to form the Death Eaters, you see. He was convinced I was up to something. That there was no way that I could possibly ever want to teach." He scoffed humorously.