"Huff… huff…"
Avada stood inside the hidden laboratory of the Room of Requirement, gasping for breath from his frantic sprint. His trembling hands clumsily sorted through materials. His face was deathly pale, cold sweat still clinging to his forehead, sliding down along his brow ridge, seeping through his eyebrows, almost dripping into his eyes…
But he had no mind left to care about any of that.
"Destroy it…"
"Destroy everything!"
He desperately flung open cabinet after cabinet, rummaging through them, dragging out every single record of his research over the past few months—everything related to mental power and memory magic. He tossed them all into the center of the laboratory without a second thought, piling them into a towering heap. Only after he had checked every corner of the room, ensuring not a single page related to that research remained, did he stare at the massive stack of notes and drafts, panting heavily. In the end, gritting his teeth, he cast a Vanishing Spell—reducing months of painstaking work to nothingness.
He was truly afraid.
Avada had witnessed everything that happened in the Shrieking Shack with his own eyes. Nothing had deviated from his plan—not the Marauders' reconciliation, not Peter swearing an oath with Dumbledore and preparing to infiltrate the pure-blood families once more. Even Peter's initiative in proposing the vow itself had been the result of subtle suggestions Avada had deliberately planted.
Even when Peter showed the faintest hint of hesitation toward the end of the oath, the pressure from within and without still forced him to complete the Unbreakable Vow, perfectly fulfilling Avada's expectations.
And yet, precisely because he had witnessed it all firsthand, the shock it dealt him was overwhelming. Combined with the truth he already knew from memory, the extreme contrast made him feel genuine fear and revulsion—so intense that he had nearly retched.
He had completely, utterly rewritten a segment of history.
He had twisted a living mind.
Originally, Avada had merely been considering how to monitor the next moves of the hardline pure-blood faction. He had taken an interest in Peter's talent for infiltration, and inspired by that dark wizard's experiment involving the power of death, the idea had been born: alter Peter's memories and turn him into a tool for the plan. To that end, he had developed a spell capable of influencing behavior by replacing memories.
At the time, he had simply believed Peter Pettigrew to be a despicable man—a shameless coward, a traitor—someone who deserved no mercy no matter how he was treated. He had also wanted to weave a perfect story: a story with no betrayal, no falling-out, where former friends cleared their misunderstandings, reconciled, and once more fought together for the future of the wizarding world…
And in truth, he had succeeded. Even Dumbledore himself had been deceived by the fabricated history. In the end, Avada had gained a crucial ally out of thin air. Sirius and Lupin stepped back into the light from the shadows. Dumbledore obtained the final Horcrux and would learn of Regulus Black's past, finally resolving the Black family's long-standing knot…
Everything looked so beautiful.
Like a fairy tale.
But only after witnessing a despicable little man transform—without reason, without trial—into someone willing to shoulder his past sins and fight for the future of the wizarding world, someone who could almost be called a hero… only then did Avada remember that Peter Pettigrew was not just a coward or a traitor.
He was a living, breathing human being.
A complete, real person—with a personality, experiences, desires, joy and anger, flesh and blood.
To casually rewrite memories, twist a personality, and manipulate behavior—
That was how tools were treated.
People were not tools.
A person—even if despicable, even if deserving of death—was still a person. And people deserved to be treated as people.
If they committed crimes, they should be punished.If they committed unforgivable sins, they should be executed.If they were utterly vile, they should be condemned by all.
But no matter what, they should never become tools.
Only now did Avada truly realize how horrifying his earlier actions had been. He had come perilously close to treating living people like Voldemort did—like the dark wizards did—as objects to be manipulated at will.
And if he had failed to recognize this, if he had continued basking smugly in the idea that "everyone benefited," then without question he would have gone on like this—again and again—until he completely lost the ability to distinguish between "people" and "tools," exploiting everything without restraint or bottom line to achieve any goal whatsoever.
That state had a name.
The erosion of humanity.
The most textbook mindset of a Dark Wizard.
He had nearly crossed the point of no return.
"Terrifying…"
Avada looked down at the still-trembling, pale back of his hand and forced a crooked, bitter smile.
"So this is how easy it is… to fall into becoming a Dark Wizard. Quietly. Without even realizing it."
"But it's my own fault. I went too deep into Dark Magic. Mental magic is already the most dangerous field—and I even dared to touch the soul…"
"When researching things that touch the essence of life, it's far too easy to view life purely in a naturalistic sense—as nothing more than a phenomenon formed by interchangeable parts—while forgetting the moral meaning society assigns to life…"
He recalled the message Professor Beck had left him in that book:
[Do not lose yourself on the path of seeking truth and grow indifferent to life.]
When he had first read that line, he'd been certain such a basic principle would never trip him up.
"From now on… never again."
Steadying his breathing, he raised his wand to his temple and extracted the memory of his current thoughts, sealing it into a small vial. He then bound it tightly together with the vial containing Peter's original memories, staining the mouth of the bottles with a vivid, warning crimson.
He would carry this pair of vials with him at all times—both as a memorial to a grave mistake, and as a warning to his future self.
The consequences of what he had already done could no longer be undone. Attempting to hastily fix it would only lead to even greater disaster, with consequences far more widespread. All he could do now was carry on, making the best of a terrible mistake—using the opportunity he had gained at the cost of nearly falling into darkness to continue his plan.
This, too, was his atonement.
As for the magic he had created—the spell that altered memories to reshape an entire personality and change behavior—
He would stake his life to ensure that such a calamity would leave no trace in this world.
"For the time being, I can't touch mental magic again. Research into souls and Horcruxes has to stop as well—Voldemort's Horcruxes are already fully accounted for anyway. Thankfully, my next planned research direction was the werewolf curse…"
He braced himself against the table and let out a long sigh. In a daze, a bone-deep exhaustion surged through every cell of his body, so intense he wanted nothing more than to lose consciousness and collapse on the spot.
"It's time to go back and sleep."
"I wonder… how Harry and Sirius will get along in the future. And what will become of Peter when he finally faces judgment…"
(End of Chapter)