Dabbling With The Dark

Chapter 8

"So where are we?" he asked, looking around the room.

It was definitely an old building; most likely part of a castle given the stone walls, but it was beautiful, noble even. A long table was along one side with twelve chairs around it. The back of the room was a raised platform of stones, the three steps leading to a large bed. Shelves of books dominated the right side of the room at least seven feet high, the only break in them being the door they'd just come through that was still open leading back to the Shrieking Shack. On the other wall was another door leading who knew where, but there was another table beside it with maps, inkbottles, parchments, quills, and books on top of it. The only other thing in the room was the large fireplace, floo sized, just south of the head of the table.

"You do not really believe I will tell you the location for you to send Dumbledore and the Order here, do you, Harry?" Voldemort chuckled again.

"Why not? You tell me and teach all sort of other things," he replied walking over to one of the bookshelves and scanning the titles.

"Why do you allow me to teach you?" Voldemort retorted, standing directly behind him. Harry glanced left and right without moving his head, then back at the shelf of books in front of him.

"Because it's the only way I'll learn anything useful," he replied. He felt Voldemort move closer until he was pretty sure you couldn't slide a quill sideway between them without the feather's bristles brushing against one of them. "Before you make another move remember that I'm not a Death Eater and I don't submit."

"Do not flatter yourself, Harry."

"I can hear your thoughts when you leave yourself open for me to talk to you just as you can hear mine," Harry retorted, and turned to face his enemy. "Such a powerful, pretty boy. It's almost a shame I have to kill him," Harry smirked.

"Ah, yes it is," the man said and lifted a hand. Harry didn't flinch as the tip of the man's wand dragged slowly down his left cheek. "I could kill you at this very moment and it would take weeks, months even before the Order found your body."

"Our bodies," Harry retorted, pressing the tip of his own wand just a little more firmly into the other man's side. Voldemort grinned at him and he returned the expression.

"You are wasting your talents fighting for Dumbledore," Voldemort said lowering his wand.

"I'm not fighting for Dumbledore. I'm not a member of the Order," Harry said doing the same and turning back to the shelves tucking his wand back up his sleeve.

"Then why continue to fight me?"

"You killed my parents, that's why," Harry snorted. "You sentenced me to being raised by Muggles worse than you were raised by."

"I did not leave you with your Muggle relatives, Dumbledore did that."

"You made it necessary for him to." He pulled a book off the shelves and flipped it open to the table of contents. "If you hadn't killed my parents I'd be nothing more than another stupid teenager at Hogwarts."

"True, but that would have been an even worse injustice to you." He turned and looked at Voldemort again already opening his mouth to argue that. "Tell me, Harry, do you believe you would have become the wizard you are today without having endured all that you have?" He closed his mouth because he knew he wouldn't be. "Desolation and indignation are powerful motivations towards greatness." Voldemort took the book from his hand, summoned another, and held it out to him. "Dumbledore is a fool not to provide you with the guidance that you truly need to achieve that greatness."