Chapter 211: Nightmare
What came for Harry… was Lord Voldemort.
His arrival was sudden—unnaturally so. No door opened, no sound preceded him. One moment, Harry was alone; the next, that figure simply stood there, as if he had always been part of the room.
It was Aunt Marge Dursley's birthday. The Dursleys had just finished a lavish meal, and—for reasons unclear, whether out of charity or mere whim—Harry had been given a small turkey wing.
He had already accepted his fate. Perhaps everything before had been nothing more than a dream. He wasn't a wizard. He wasn't a savior. He was just a pitiful boy living under someone else's roof.
So he held that turkey wing like a treasure, a rare fragment of kindness, and brought it toward his mouth.
Then—
A piercing scream shattered the air, so sharp it felt like it might tear his eardrums apart.
Harry looked up instinctively, trying to understand what could make his usually composed aunt scream so wildly out of place.
And then he saw it.
He saw him.
A figure so horrifying it seemed torn from the depths of nightmare itself.
His skin looked like parchment soaked in embalming wax, gleaming with an unnatural, pearlescent sheen under the firelight. The contours of his skull were unnaturally sharp, almost deformed, with sunken temples that cast hollow shadows—as if something unseen gnawed within his head.
The thick black hair that once belonged to Tom Riddle had long since vanished, replaced by a pale scalp veined with sickly blue networks. Those veins pulsed like cursed rivers, converging into faint, indistinct patterns across his crown.
His eyes—two black pearls set into a skull-like face—reflected a decaying crimson-violet hue. His pupils had shrunk into thin, vertical slits that glowed faintly in the dim light.
When Harry met his gaze, he could see his own distorted reflection burning within them.
His nose had collapsed like melted wax, leaving only two narrow, triangular slits. His lips were so thin they nearly disappeared into the pallor of his face.
In his hand, he held a wand.
A wand.
For a brief, fragile moment, Harry felt something flicker inside him—hope.
But before that thought could fully form, the figure moved.
And everything began.
It started with Dudley's Nintendo.
The console, plastered with stickers of football stars, suddenly burst into eerie green flames. Dudley's fat fingers remained frozen mid-button press—even as they began to melt.
Harry saw Dudley's lips move before they charred into ash. Judging by the shape, it looked like he was saying "sorry." But whether it was a final moment of regret—or merely a trick of the fire—Harry would never know.
Then the cabinet of Petunia's prized porcelain dishes exploded.
Fragments of a mug labeled "World's Best Housewife" shot through the air, one shard embedding itself deep into Uncle Vernon's eye.
And the nightmare had only just begun.
The man who had once used those very eyes to glare at Harry day after day was now nothing more than a charred cocoon, consumed by Fiendfyre.
"Ah—ah—ah…" Aunt Petunia's eyes bulged as she stared at her husband and son, both dead in an instant. Her face was frozen in pure terror.
Then her scream died in her throat.
Because she had already turned into a pitch-black statue.
"Ah, she really was noisy, wasn't she?" Lord Voldemort curled his lips into a smile as he looked at Harry, his tone dripping with disdain. "Must have been exhausting, dealing with that every day."
"Petunia? Vernon? Dudley? What happened to you?"
Marge Dursley, who had been in the bathroom after overeating, heard the commotion and hurried out, still fastening her clothes—only to freeze at the horrifying scene before her.
"Damn it—what are you supposed to be?!" she shouted, pointing straight at Voldemort without hesitation.
It had been a long time since anyone dared speak to him like that. For a brief moment, Voldemort actually paused, not even bothering to silence her.
She kept ranting, and when he didn't respond, she turned her fury on Harry.
"They're all dead—so why are you still alive?" she shrieked. "Did you bring this monster here?!"
She stormed toward him, her dog barking wildly as it charged alongside her.
"Good. Very good. It's been years since anyone dared speak to me this way."
Voldemort let out a cold, amused laugh and flicked his wand.
Marge's vicious expression vanished, replaced by blank confusion.
The next moment, she dropped to all fours, crawling across the floor—barking.
Her dog, meanwhile, froze mid-charge. It lifted its front paws as if trying to stand upright, struggling again and again, but failing each time. It spun anxiously in circles, its small eyes filled with unmistakably human panic.
"How unsightly."
Disgust flickered across Voldemort's face. With another casual wave of his wand, Marge's body stiffened—then collapsed lifelessly onto the ground with a dull thud.
The dog let out a low, broken whimper.
"For the rest of your life, you'll live as a dog. I think that suits you."
His laughter echoed like the cry of a night owl.
Harry stared, horrified. This wizard could swap the souls of humans and animals with effortless ease. It was terrifying.
And in that moment, Harry finally understood who stood before him.
Who else could it be… but Voldemort?
"How dull," Voldemort said lazily as he stepped forward, crushing Petunia's pearl necklace beneath his feet. Each pearl shattered into ash-like powder. "Now that the blood protection has failed… what do you have left, Harry?"
When the Dursley house had been reduced to ashes, Voldemort pressed the tip of his wand against Harry's scar.
"Now… it's time for our shared anniversary."
Black mist poured from the yew wand, thick and viscous, coalescing into a vision of Godric's Hollow.
"Your father died on his knees."
His voice was hoarse, yet strangely mesmerizing.
Within the swirling darkness appeared the bloodied head of James Potter, and the image of Lily Potter retreating with her wand raised.
"He tried to block the staircase with his own body. Foolish Gryffindor," Voldemort sneered.
In the vision, James fired one final streak of red light—a defensive spell Harry had never learned. The moment it touched Voldemort's robes, it shattered into firefly-like sparks.
Harry's chest tightened painfully. He wanted to step forward, to help—but he could do nothing.
The black mist churned on, and suddenly Lily's voice pierced through the memory.
"Please… have mercy…"
Voldemort's cruel laughter overlapped with the past.
"What a beautiful tremble in her voice, Harry. Even as the Killing Curse approached, your mother still tried to lecture me on morality."
Harry watched as his mother transformed the crib into a fortress of steel—yet chose to stand at the doorway herself.
Lily's wand traced ancient runes in the air, a form of magic never taught at Hogwarts. The shield she conjured actually deflected the Killing Curse by five inches, scorching the wall instead.
"She was close," Voldemort murmured, dragging a fingernail across Harry's bleeding scar. "So very close to becoming a legend."
He smiled coldly.
"Pity… she looked back at you."