Lockhart of The Kaleidoscope

[52 years before the Gilderoy Lockhart become DADA professor at Hogwarts]

Mercia Greengrass stood in the shadows, unnoticed, as the young boy named Tom Riddle strolled down the halls of Hogwarts. There was something unmistakably different about him, a chilling aura that repelled most who came near him. It wasn't just the emptiness in his eyes that caught her attention—it was his soul. As soon as she laid eyes on him, she could feel it, using the Soul Arts. When she finally peered deeper, her reaction was immediate: revulsion.

His soul was unlike anything she had ever seen in a child. It was filled with darkness, cruelty, and—emptiness. The soul reflected everything foul that could reside within a human being. There was no compassion, no kindness, not even the faintest echo of love. It was as if every possible humane trait had been burned away, leaving only the worst aspects of human nature behind. The boy's very essence was a void of malice.

Yet, there was something else that caught her eye. Fear. Deep within that twisted soul, she saw an overwhelming fear, the fear hadn't taken any form yet it existed in his soul. Within his dark soul, there was also a strength, that of any ordinary wizard. 

Gellert Grindelwald had been strong, ambitious, and charismatic, but he had also been weak. His love for Dumbledore had ultimately led to his downfall. Gellert had allowed emotion to tether him, and in the end, it had cost him everything. But this boy—this Tom Riddle—had no such weakness. His soul possessed no love, no attachment, no capacity for empathy. He was exactly what she needed. If Gellert had failed her because of his humanity, then Tom Riddle, whose soul was devoid of such traits, might just succeed where Grindelwald had fallen.

From that day on, Mercia kept a close watch on the boy. She could see how his cold, calculating nature isolated him from others. But Mercia knew that he needed something more to actually control him and she already had her answer. 'Fear', its was already a powerful force within him, but it had to be amplified. Fear of death—the one thing no wizard had ever truly conquered—would be the key to manipulating him.

Through subtle manipulation, Mercia ensured that Tom would develop a deeper obsession with mortality. She made certain that he would encounter stories and legends of powerful wizards who had fallen to death despite their might. She planted the idea in his mind that death was the only enemy worth defeating, the only challenge worth overcoming. And Tom, with his twisted soul, embraced that fear, letting it consume him.

In the years that followed, Mercia continued her silent grooming. She provided Tom with access to dark magic, spells that most in the wizarding world would never dare touch. But these were not just any spells—these were spells designed to give him a false sense of security. Spells that promised him power, but none of which could truly deliver the immortality he craved, it was like someone gave a starving man a taste of five-star cuisine, but it only made him hungrier. Mercia watched as Tom, believing he was becoming invincible, grew more confident in his own abilities. He believed he was on the path to conquering death, but in truth, Mercia was merely feeding his delusions.

As Tom grew older and stronger, Mercia knew it was time to give him what he truly sought—the illusion of immortality. She began to feed him information about Horcruxes, ancient magic that allowed a wizard to split their soul and anchor it to the physical world, preventing death. What Tom didn't know was that the concept of Horcruxes had originally been her creation. Long ago, during her early experiments with the Soul Arts, Mercia had developed the spell in a failed attempt to achieve immortality herself.

Horcruxes were flawed from the start. Splitting the soul did provide a form of immortality, but it came at a great cost. Each time the soul was split, it was weakened, damaged beyond repair.But Mercia wasn't concerned about these limitations. She had long since discarded the spell as a failed experiment and achieved her own form of immortality with only thing keeping her mortal, a soul-binding contract.

What Tom didn't know, and what made Mercia confident in sharing her knowledge, was that she had many ways to destroy him. Even if he created multiple Horcruxes, she could still end his existence. The spell was powerful, but not invincible. It was a false immortality.

Tom Riddle, now Lord Voldemort, embraced the Horcruxes with fervor. He began to tear his soul apart, piece by piece, creating the very objects that would give him a sense of invulnerability. But what Mercia had predicted from the start came to pass: the more he split his soul, the more he lost his humanity. He became a vile, inhumane madman, drunk on power, blind to the consequences of his actions. He was exactly what she had foreseen—a creature of pure malice, without love or compassion, driven only by the desire for domination and survival.

Yet, even with all his power, Voldemort failed.

Just as with Grindelwald, Voldemort's revolution was halted by Albus Dumbledore. Mercia had expected Voldemort to be different, to succeed where Grindelwald had failed, but once again, Dumbledore had interfered. His influence had prevented Voldemort from overthrowing the Ministry. And then, something unexpected happened—Voldemort was defeated by a child.

Lily Potter—a name Mercia hadn't paid much attention to before—suddenly became a subject of intense interest. Lily had done something remarkable. When Voldemort attacked her, she had somehow managed to reflect his Avada Kedavra curse, a spell that directly attacked the soul. And not only that, she had placed a powerful protective spell over her son, Harry Potter, a spell that safeguarded Harry Potter's soul from Voldemort's soul.

These were completely original spells. These spells were too complex, too deeply tied to the soul to have been created without knowledge of the Soul Arts. Mercia knew this immediately. There were only a few ways to create spells that could affect the soul so directly, and all of them required a deep understanding of the Soul Arts.

Mercia began to theorize. How had Lily Potter come across such knowledge? Was it possible that she had stumbled upon some ancient text, some lost piece of the Soul Arts that Mercia herself had not discovered?Did someone else other than her and salazar's spectre also possess soul arts. It was an unsettling thought. But there was something else that gave Mercia pause—why hadn't Lily used her knowledge to defeat Voldemort entirely?

After much consideration, Mercia concluded that Lily's knowledge must have been limited. The spells she had created were powerful, yes, but they required sacrifice. Lily had sacrificed her own soul to protect Harry's. It was a one-time use of the magic, similar to how the Horcrux spell required the sacrifice of a life. This limitation suggested that Lily had only a severely limited understanding of the Soul Arts, enough to create these specific spells but not enough to truly master them.

Mercia knew that Lily's success against Voldemort had been a fluke, a product of her limited knowledge and the unique circumstances of her sacrifice. It wasn't something that could be replicated without a deeper understanding of the Soul Arts, something that only Mercia possessed. But the fact that Lily had even come close to grasping such magic intrigued Mercia. There were still pieces of the puzzle that eluded her like where did Lily Potter got her knowledge on souls from, and she would need to find them.

For now, though, her focus remained on the greater plan—the plan that had begun with Grindelwald and continued through Voldemort. Dumbledore had been a hinderence both of them, but soon, he would be out of the picture.

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[Few Days before the Gilderoy Lockhart become DADA professor at Hogwarts]

[Mercia Greengrass' POV]

It had been over a hundred years since I first received the Soul Arts, and still, I had barely scratched the surface of their true potential. When Salazar had granted me the Mind Arts, I had not been immediately blessed with complete understanding. It wasn't some instant epiphany, like suddenly knowing every hidden secret of the universe. No, the Mind Arts were like a library—an immense, boundless library. Every book, every tome within it, was filled with unimaginable knowledge, but I had to sift through it all, understand it one piece at a time.

The Soul Arts worked similarly. When I first inherited them, I thought I was prepared. I had dealt with complex magic, dark magic, but this—this was on an entirely different level. It was vast and eternal, with the weight of existence itself tied into its pages. A century later, I had studied diligently, but I had only begun to grasp a fraction of the Soul Arts. Even Salazar's specter, after a thousand years, hadn't fully understood them. What hope did I have of mastering them in such a short time?

And yet, it was that obsession with mastery that fueled me. My so-called "Dark Lords"—Grindelwald, Voldemort—these were nothing more than side projects. Gellert, with his charisma and strength, had been a tool to ignite the wizarding world. Tom, with his inhumanity and madness, had been another attempt to break society's bonds. Both were pawns.

But my true focus? It had always been the Root of Magic. That was where my heart lay, in the endless study of the Soul Arts and the Akashic Records tied to them. In a hundred years, my knowledge had grown, but it was still painfully limited. Still, I had watched with satisfaction as the chaos I engineered spread. And yet, the same man had foiled both of my pawns.

Albus Dumbledore.

He had defeated Grindelwald. He had been the bane of Voldemort's ambitions. And now, after all these years, I had come to realize that he was the one standing in the way of my plans.

He needed to be removed.

Now that I have decided to take a break from studying soul arts, I will personally handle the matter of Albus Dumbledore.

Recently Voldemort's spectre tried to revive himself through the Sorcerer's Stone but foolish of him for not knowing that the Sorcerer's Stone itself was nothing but a failed experiment, just like the Horcruxes. An artificial means to escape death, much like my own early failures. Nicolas Flamel, for all his centuries of life, was no more than a walking corpse, barely clinging to existence. The Stone had preserved him, but it had robbed him of true vitality. Just like Horcruxes, it was nothing but a dead end. Dumbledore had destroyed the Stone, and by doing so, he believed he had rid the world of one more temptation for those seeking immortality.

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[Albus Dumbledore's POV]

There was a distinct unease in the air as I made my way through the winding corridors of Hogwarts. The school was usually peaceful at this hour, but tonight, something felt... off. I could sense it, a strange disturbance, like the faint hum of magic gone awry. It tugged at the edges of my awareness, an anomaly that demanded my attention. Whatever it was, it lingered in the older, more forgotten parts of the castle.

My pace quickened, the echo of my footsteps the only sound in the empty hallways. As I approached the source of the disturbance, the energy thickened, growing almost tangible. I felt it like an unsettling pulse beneath my skin, something I had not felt in many years. My hand instinctively tightened around my wand, though I didn't expect any immediate danger.

The door to one of the long-forgotten rooms stood slightly ajar. A dim, flickering light cast a faint glow from within. I hesitated for a moment, listening, but there was no sound save for the steady crackle of the torchlight. My brow furrowed as I pushed the door open and stepped inside.

The room was empty. Devoid of any furnishings or decoration, save for one peculiar object at its center: a glass bottle, standing tall and solitary on a stone pedestal.There was no immediate indication of danger, but I could feel the weight of the magic around me. Something was not right.

I stepped closer, studying the bottle carefully. It doesn't seem like any magical artifact , just a regular muggle glass bottle. What is this? I thought, trying to unravel the mystery in front of me.

But then, without warning, I felt it—an invisible force, stronger than any spell, yanking at my very essence. Before I could react, it seized my chest like an iron grip, holding me in place. My wand slipped from my hand, clattering uselessly to the ground. I reached out to retrieve it, but I found I could not move.

Panic bloomed in my chest. My body, once under my complete control, now seemed bound by unseen chains. I tried to speak, but no sound escaped my lips. I was frozen, trapped in my own skin.

Then came the sensation—an indescribable pulling from deep within me. It was as though something was tearing me apart from the inside. My vision blurred, and I felt my mouth opening involuntarily, as if something were being forcibly extracted from me. I tried to resist, summoning every ounce of magical strength I had, but it was futile. The force was too strong, too overpowering.

I could feel it now—my soul—being dragged out, as though by an unseen hand. The sensation was unlike anything I had ever experienced. My mind screamed in protest, but my body remained unresponsive. I could only watch as my essence, the very core of who I was, was ripped from my body.

"No..." The word echoed in my mind, a silent cry for help, but no one could hear me.

I could see it now, the silvery stream of my soul, twisting and turning as it was drawn from my body, pulled toward the glass bottle that stood before me. I watched helplessly as my soul was funneled into the bottle, swirling within it like smoke trapped in a jar. The last of my essence slipped away, and the world around me began to fade.

I was aware of everything—the room, the bottle, the faint glow of magic that surrounded me—but I could do nothing. I was trapped, confined to this small, fragile prison of glass. I tried to focus, tried to call upon any remaining magic, but I had no power here. The only thing I could do was watch.

From my prison, I could see my body. It stood there, motionless, an empty shell, devoid of life or consciousness. And then, to my horror, a new figure entered the room.

It was a doll. Small, humanoid, and walking with unnatural precision. It had no face, no features, just a blank mask and simple robes. It moved toward my body, its limbs stiff and mechanical, yet disturbingly purposeful. The doll reached for the bottle containing my soul, its delicate hands gripping it carefully, as though it knew the significance of what it held.

I tried to resist, tried to break free, but the bottle held me fast. The doll ignored my efforts, cradling the bottle as if it were some prized possession, and then turned its attention to my body. My empty shell.

It approached the lifeless form of Albus Dumbledore—my form—and gently set the bottle aside. Then, with mechanical precision, it reached out and touched the back of my neck. There was a faint crackling sound, and I could feel the magic shifting around me. A cold, eerie energy passed from the doll into my empty body.

And then, as if it had completed its task, the doll collapsed. Its limbs jerked once before it crumpled to the floor, its purpose fulfilled.

But the terror had only just begun. My body—my lifeless shell—moved.

It was subtle at first, just a twitch of the fingers, a slight adjustment in posture. But then, slowly, deliberately, it stood taller, turning its head as though surveying the room. My body was alive, but I had no control over it. Someone—or something—was controlling it.

I was helpless, trapped inside the glass bottle, forced to watch as my own body moved without my consent. I could see everything, hear everything, but I had no voice. No power. It was like watching myself from behind a veil, separated from my own existence.

The realization hit me like a crushing weight. My soul was imprisoned, and my body had become a puppet, controlled by forces I could not see. I wanted to scream, to break free, but there was nothing I could do.

I was trapped. And the world would never know.