"You're the one who belongs in a cell."
Lord Voldemort chuckled and scolded him. "That is a child I raised with my own hands, the heir of the Prince family."
"Well, I can see that. Otherwise, how could old Prince ever be worth you going out to mourn him in person?"
Abraxas knew Lord Voldemort extremely well. He leaned in with a sly grin and said mysteriously, "Hey, Voldy, tell me honestly, is that your illegitimate child?"
"Or your godson, or your heir?"
Lord Voldemort drew his Yew wand. "Abraxas!!!"
"Whoa, whoa, whoa, why are you getting so hot-headed?!"
...
That evening, Abraxas left Voldemort Manor and returned to Malfoy Manor. After dinner, he summoned Lucius.
"Father?"
Lucius looked at his father in confusion. Abraxas pulled a Pensieve out from a very hidden spot in the study and motioned for Lucius to come over.
Soon, Lucius understood what Abraxas meant, and he couldn't help saying, "Father, I will guide him well."
Abraxas nodded with satisfaction. "This is also Voldy's wish. He must have handpicked you to take that child under your wing. Voldy and I are close friends, and you are close friends with his chosen heir—our Malfoy family will remain glorious forever."
"Remember, when we make friends, we don't just look at lineage; we look at ability. The Malfoy family are the finest speculators."
"Yes, Father."
...
Lord Voldemort was a very patient hunter, so he had simply summoned Lucius. Lucius was Abraxas's son, the heir to the Malfoy family, and had once been the sole friend of his double agent.
When Severus reached the age of eleven, on the eve of the new term, Lord Voldemort sought out Dumbledore again, having sent word that he wished to see him.
"Old honeybee, what do you want with me?"
Lord Voldemort sat on the sofa, gazing lazily at Dumbledore with his red pupils, effortlessly making an ordinary, stiff sofa look like custom-made haute couture.
Dumbledore sighed and asked, "Would you care to become the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor?"
Lord Voldemort: "?"
Did I wake up on the wrong side of the bed? The old honeybee is asking me to be the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor.
Dumbledore gave a wry smile. "Don't misunderstand. Half of Europe is already under your control."
"The remaining Ministry of Magic simply hopes that I can stall you, by any means necessary."
Moreover, Lord Voldemort's influence had grown immensely vast, yet he himself merely wandered about Britain, occasionally appearing in Diagon Alley, Hogsmeade, and Knockturn Alley.
The British Ministry of Magic had a new Minister, Cornelius Fudge, whom Lord Voldemort had casually pushed into the position.
Furthermore, judging by the Order of the Phoenix's years of experience fighting a guerrilla war against the Death Eaters, their actions were not all that frantic or hysterical.
In recent years, half-bloods and Muggle-born wizards had developed at an extraordinarily rapid pace, causing pure-bloods to feel a profound sense of crisis—and then, a few years later, they had put forward this figure known as Lord Voldemort.
Grindelwald had entered Nurmengard not long before, and then Voldemort had appeared. Dumbledore truly had no energy left to continue fighting yet another Dark wizard about whom he knew so little.
He seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, completely inscrutable in his tastes and objectives, simply leading the pure-blood wizards to purge their internal ranks and assault other Ministries of Magic.
Dumbledore hadn't really understood why Voldemort targeted the Ministries of Magic until 1961, when Voldemort issued the first Dark Lord decree of his tenure, and everything suddenly became clear.
Any wizard child who suffered a magical backlash due to being harmed by Muggles, and the subsequent retaliation by wizards, shall be entirely absolved of guilt. However, carrying out retaliation requires submitting documentation, which must be approved by the Dark Lord and stamped with a temporary Dark Mark before proceeding.
It was a meticulously drafted decree that protected young wizards, shocking many people.
Immediately afterward, Lord Voldemort seemed to have lost his mind, completely ignoring the pure-bloods and instead focusing intently on wizard children.
Death Eater Bulletin:
1. Any Muggle-born, half-blood, orphaned wizard child, or werewolf wizard child (experiencing magical backlash) may apply through the Death Eaters to receive a 100-Galleon subsidy and live in a Death Eater orphanage. Their guide will receive 10 Galleons, and a temporary Dark Mark will be applied. The cost is that upon graduating from the orphanage, the child must perform fifteen years of labor service for the Death Eaters.
2. Slaughtering Muggle couples to obtain Muggle-born or half-blood wizard orphans—punishable by death.
Many wizards wanted to laugh—when did the Dark Lord ever meddle in such matters? But by the following month, the Death Eaters announced that there were a total of 12 orphan half-blood wizard children and 26 orphan Muggle-born wizard children within the Death Eaters' sphere of influence across Europe.
Lord Voldemort's photo in the Daily Prophet remained noble and aloof, but the front-page headline was enough to blow everyone's mind.
"My mother, after a one-night stand with an unknown half-blood, left Slytherin Manor and gave birth to me in a British orphanage."
"I was born an orphan, but because of that, I have no attachments whatsoever."
The great Dark Lord was actually an orphan!
That made his actions much easier to understand, and the most crucial part was that his methods actually worked!
Lord Voldemort had recently been sharpening his knives in preparation to strike the American Ministry of Magic. He had summoned his Death Eaters, and nearly half of the Sacred Twenty-Eight had turned up, with the Malfoys, Blacks, Parkinsons, Lestranges, Roziers, and Carrows all sending promising newcomers.
These pure-bloods valued profits, and even greater profits at that.
Once the Ministries of Magic around the world were connected, commerce became much more convenient, national borders were barely noticeable, and Portkeys were sold far more widely. British pure-blood wizards could simply purchase Portkeys from the Death Eaters and travel anywhere.
Reporting to the Ministry of Magic? What even was that?
Hysterical laughter.
...
Severus felt as though he had entered a fake Hogwarts, yet at the same time, perhaps he hadn't.
The pure-bloods this time were not as sharp or aggressive, but the accursed Gryffindors... remained as foolish as ever.
To Severus, it felt as though all the Slytherins had evolved overnight, while leaving the other three houses behind—or rather, just Gryffindor?
Upon seeing the sleeve of a Hufflepuff student council president slip down while raising a goblet, revealing a variant of the Dark Mark, Severus's pupils contracted violently.
Wait, what—did Hogwarts not even spare Hufflepuff these days?!
A Ravenclaw female prefect followed suit, a fifth-year and a seventh-year boy and girl raising their goblets together, bearing the exact same variant of the Dark Mark.
Severus: ?
Then he saw that accursed werewolf stand up as well, exposing the variant Dark Mark on his arm, shunned by the entire Gryffindor house yet embraced by the other three houses.
Severus wasn't quite sure whether he had gone mad or the world had. Perhaps the only relatively normal person left was Lucius?