Sun Tzu Says

Prologue: I

AN: Let's begin. The dawn of a new journey, the path paved by the scraps of travellers gone, journeys lost.

I reskinned the prologue from A Darker Shade of Magic again, but this time, the story is completely different, so tell me what you think of this.

Happy reading!

Time: Halloween, when Rose Potter is Two Years Old

Voldemort easily blended into the Muggle world tonight, not even caring to hide his hideous appearance with the charms he usually did whenever going out on a stealth mission..... which was not very often, he had to admit.

But he found himself not particularly caring tonight.

He sneered at the passing Muggles who 'ooh'ed and 'aah'ed at his 'costume', making him twitch in anger, his sneer intensifying until Severus would be proud of him. He had to hand it to that greasy bat, apart from bootlicking and potions, the art of sneering was something the man could boast of mastering. Well, perhaps Voldemort might have been jealous of the way the Potions master made his robes billow like a bat, too, but he had to restrain himself from copying him. No, however much he liked the idea, it just wouldn't do to copy someone beneath him.

No, he thought idly, suppressing the urge to whip out his wand and torture the Muggle couple who passed him, so tooth rottingly sweet and ignorant.

Foolish Muggles, so ignorant of their own inferiority.

He caught a reflection of familiar red eyes staring back at him from the gleaming silver body of one of those primitive Muggle rides parked on the sidewalk, smiling at the reflection.

To anyone else, the sight of Voldemort smiling to his reflection would have been a nightmare, but the Dark Lord was on cloud nine, feeling like nothing in the mortal world could even begin to graze the extent of his happiness.

His slit-like pupils were almost dilated- almost- high on a rush of adrenaline that he had not thought himself even capable of anymore. His pale, sickly skin reflected the yellow streetlights, which cast a golden glow about him, gilded skin and a yellow-toothed, lipless smile- Gryffindor colours, but he found himself not minding it all that much. Sharp shadows cast across his abnormal features, an absent nose and flared nostrils set square right above a lipless mouth cracked at the corners, and a silent breeze ruffled his black robes.

Drawing his attention back to the gilded Muggles milling about underneath the golden light, the Dark Lord could not help but regard them with the utmost contempt.

If it was one thing that Voldemort could respect above all else, it was knowledge. For, knowledge was power.

But above all, knowledge and reason were what made them human, superior to all else. The tool that their ancestors had used to carve out their own paths, the tool which Salazar Slytherin prided in, encouraged his successors to sharpen.

And these Muggles, knew nothing of reason. They were mindless sheep, though the wizarding world could not boast of being any better. They were beasts, prey, for the humans to hunt.

They were subhuman. Caricatures of nature, caught between beast and man, a missing link, an abomination, a stillbirth child locked in the womb of evolution. Incomplete.

And Voldemort, despite being twisted beyond all recognition, his soul torn and mutilated, was the most human of them all. He was the closest to completion, the most perfect- despite the self-mutilations he had inflicted upon himself.

The fool, Dumbledore, would define humanity as something else, and would say that the main objective of reason was to show mercy, but Voldemort knew better.