Three months after the spark, the war had teeth. London tasted of fear; the Prophet's editorials had taught the city to flinch at every unfamiliar noise. I stood in the square beneath the sluice of gas-lamps and pointed my wand up until the clouds took notice.
Morsmordre — the name fell from my lips like an invitation. Above the rooftops the Dark Mark unfurled, immense and obscene, a green pallor that crawled across the sky. It was theatre and ritual both; it was a promise that night would now answer to our colors.
My men moved like a practiced relief force — white armbands, calm faces, efficient gestures. We struck where the symbolism would be loudest: the corridors of power themselves. I took no pleasure in petty slaughter; I took pleasure in effect. Doors folded, alarms stuttered, and the halls that make ordinary people believe in the solidity of government trembled for a moment.
They found the Prime Minister where ministers habitually sit: insulated, brittle, certain that laws protected him. I stepped over the threshold, and the room slowed to the tick of a single heartbeat. The man looked up as if at a minor annoyance. I did not waste words. A quiet charm — a sleep that felt like a warm blanket — closed his eyes. He went down without spectacle.
Orders were given; men moved him to secure custody. I am not a monster of cruelty for its own sake. My devices require evidence and obedience more than body counts. I left him alive, contained, and useful. That night the Ministry applauded our intervention and wrote my name with gratitude under every report.
I had intended to leave then. I had not intended to meet Albus Dumbledore in the corridor of the Ministry.
He appeared like a conscience that refuses to be ignored — a tall figure in a coat that had seen a hundred storms. His eyes were a map of the old world he defended. He did not shout, or plead, or posture. He simply stepped into the hall and looked at me.
"You will not be allowed to make a habit of this," he said. Calm, certain, and very alive.
"Then stop me," I replied.
He didn't wait for polite diplomacy. He raised his wand and the room answered. There was a motion of air, a formal prayer to the old rules, and the duel began as all the best things begin — quickly, beautifully, and without mercy.
I opened with killing spells because why not test your sword on the most skilled blade? Stupefy was a prelude; Avada Kedavra a clean, lethal question flung across the space between us. He answered in transfiguration, turning the energy into walls of stone that ate the light. My lightning collapsed against his wind; his gusts scattered my strikes like leaves.
We moved like two storms grazing each other's edges. I leapt to his flank and flung a spear of driven lightning; he braided a current of air to push it aside. He transfigured a bowl of water and sent it roaring toward me in an attempt to bury the blaze I carried; I shattered the column with an outward blast that rang like metal.
He countered with phoenix-fire summoned from the heart of memory. I met it with a shield notched from my own darker arts — Protego Diabolica — a ring of suffering that ate magic and spat heat back into the air. The phoenix's cry was a bell, and for an instant I felt the weight of an entire age in its note. I answered with a knife-thought, a blade of condensed force that came so close it nicked his shoulder. He took the blow as a knight takes a bruise.
Beyond us the city reared in panic and prayer. Buildings trembled as spells collided, as stone became beast and beast became stone. I ripped handfuls of masonry from the pavement and breathed animation into them — lions, eagles, serpents of granite that lunged and tore. He answered in kind: a badger, a lion, a volley of stone that smashed the beasts into dust.
He tried to drown me, and for a moment I tasted salt and the memory of rivers — I felt small against the weight of water. But from that pressure I made a scattering explosion of magic that shattered the tide and sent a rainbow of spray into the air. He materialised beside me, fire in his hand; I closed the distance and stabbed a flaring spear of ice at him. He pivoted, his shields taking it. The collision of energies felt like the world compressing.
We traded strikes like two blacksmiths tempering the same blade. I struck with crucio because I could — to test the grit inside a man whose moral spine had been the thorn in my side for decades. He grunted and staggered. Pain made him human and reckless; I used it.
He parried with the old lessons, the ones that taught mercy as a weapon: shields of stone, an elaborate lattice of transfiguration that took the edge off my fiendishfire. I summoned lightning that was black as stormclouds, cut through two layers of his defences; he retreated only to remount his will with a new vault of enchantment.
At one point my fury made architecture of itself: an entire building came down like a slow domino, a wall of brick meant to crush and to claim. He apparated clear at the last breath, leaving rubble smoking and my intention unfulfilled. He retreated, but he did not flee. He recalibrated, and when he came back his shields were a fold of unanswerable light.
Our duel was not a dance of children. Each spell was a thesis; each block an argument. Crowds gave prayers and ran. Aurors arrived and found themselves stepping into the margins of our collision, careful to avoid the core. Above everything the Dark Mark still bled its green arrogance across the clouds like a stain.
We broke apart finally because neither of us sought the other's death in the corridor of government — not tonight. He backed away and I followed, each measured step a negotiation. The city would speak of the battle for years: of thunder and fire, of avenging beasts and the feel of falling masonry. It would tell stories that fit into the newspapers and the songs, and those tales would shape the next moves.
I retreated to Slytherin Manor with the night tearing along my back — my robes scorched, my shoulder smarting, but not diminished. Dumbledore had not been defeated. He had been wounded. Neither of us had been broken.
Later, in my study, I watched the reports and listened to the recordings of the duel like one listens to a symphony one is still unsure one understands. The city was raw and hot; the Ministry noisy with debate. Some would call me reckless. Others would call me decisive. I preferred the accuracy of truth: I had opened a gap, tested the mettle of my greatest obstacle, and discovered the edges of his patience.
There will be another day. There will be a longer battle. For now, the night belonged to the storm I had summoned — to the echo of the green mark over London and the memory of Dumbledore's phoenix as it cut through my darkest fire.
I closed my eyes and let the ache of the shoulder fade. Wars are made of many nights, and I had only just begun to make mine.