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Ouroboros – a snake biting its own tail, consuming itself. A cycle of eternal rebirth, an infinite beginning and ending.
The war has ended. All was well. The Wizarding World is rebuilt around Him, and in turn, He breaks apart.
They're standing in the dark hallways of Grimmauld Place, near the kitchen where most of the Order is gathered, and a recently escaped convict is questioning his sanity.
"This will probably sound crazy", Sirius says to Ron and Hermione. "But I'm pretty sure I'm dead."
"Uh, yeah, you died in the Department of Mysteries, mate", Ron confirms. "Fell through that Veil. Don't you remember?"
Sirius does, at least vaguely, remember being hit by Bellatrix's spell and falling through the Veil of Death, but that doesn't explain why he's back at Grimmauld Place now, in the hallway near the kitchen where most of the Order has gathered.
" Well, it's been a while since He brought you back for a loop", Hermione says. "Maybe being dead for so long messed with your memory."
"Wait, what loop? And who brought me back?"
Hermione frowns. "Oh, you don't remember anything. Don't worry too much, okay, some of it should come back soon", she reassures him. "Anyway... Harry did. For another time loop."
"We lost a lot of people in the war", Ron continues the explanation. It sounds like they're used to it. "And Harry didn't really handle it well. He kinda lost it, to be honest. And, y'know, He's the Master of Death. Like in the fairytale. That makes Him... I don't know."
"Something beyond human." Hermione swallows. She draws a deep breath, then continues. "He keeps turning back time. Changing things. He bends the rules, I mean the rules of the universe, of physics, of magic. And when He's done with a loop, it starts again. With new rules."
Sirius has gone pale, dread settles heavy in his stomach. "And what are we doing?", he asks, because certainly these two must have a plan.
Ron shrugs. "We play along. You get used to it after a while and it's honestly kinda fun. I'm still not sure what a Magical Core is." He chuckles, though the smile quickly turns somber. "And hey, we're His friends, of course we help Him through this."
"We think it's Harry's way of working through the trauma", Hermione elaborates. "So we play the roles He wants us to. I'm sure when He feels better He'll end the loop and create a good timeline for us." She smiles, like it's not a thing to worry about. The optimism sounds forced but Sirius doesn't call her out on it.
Before Him lies an array of jagged pieces. He feels for the many facets of Himself, damaged, broken, and He reaches and begins to rearrange the pieces. He knows that once He finds the correct order, the right picture, than He Himself will be whole again.
When the first loop happens, Ron and Hermione wake up in Grimmauld Place, fifteen years old again. They think, at first, that it must be a dream, a shared nightmare, or maybe that the war was a nightmare instead, that Voldemort has yet to die.
They race downstairs, where all the papers and calenders show the year 1995, and everyone else shares their delusions of years suddenly lost, of a war that's not yet fought, a battle not yet won. The Order is gathered in the living room, confusion and insecurity and, above all, fear palpable among them. Nobody knows what's going on, but everyone knows something is going on, and Ron holds Hermione tight even though his heart is racing just as fast as hers.
And then He appears.
Harry Potter – in the sense that He has jet black hair and emerald eyes and a lightning scar on His forhead – arrives at His godfather's home with the Invisibility Cloak draped over His shoulder, the Resurrection Stone on a silver chain around His neck, and the Elder Wand in His right hand. He walks into the room like He owns it, calls Ron and Hermione terrible friends for abandoning Him all summer, and announces to Dumbledore that He knows. About His inheritance, and His lordships, and the money stolen from His vaults.
It's a mess, of course. Hermione tries to reason that: "Gringotts doesn't offer inheritance tests, Harry. Why would the Goblins have records of Wizard bloodlines? You can only take those at the Ministry, that's where the records are kept."
"Nobody can just take money from you, mate", Ron adds. "And the Potters don't have any lordships, where did you hear that?"
Molly fusses over the boy, worried beyond reason, because: "What happened to you, Harry? Were you hit by a curse? Oh dear, we should go to St. Mungo's and sort this out."
Dumbledore, meanwhile, looks at the Hallows He is carrying, and he goes pale, and it's the first time any of them have ever seen Albus Dumbledore afraid. "Harry, do you know anything about this time anomaly we're experiencing?", he asks, calmly.
Harry stares at them, and His expression turns furious. "No", He says, and for a moment, they see beyond the facade. Through the cracks in the veneer they peek at toxic green eyes glowing in the dim light, at the visage that would befit Death itself, at something too large that's straining against the human shell. It's beautiful and terrible and tastes of ozone after a lightning strike and then they wake up in their beds again, the day restarted.
It takes a few tries until they finally go along with the things He says and, finally, the loop moves on.
In Slytherin Manor, a luxurious place that had not existed before the loops had started, Lord Voldemort looks at his human form in the mirror. "At least He let me keep the eyes." It's the only thing remaining from his serpentine appearance – ruby irises with a reptilian pupil, as inhuman as it gets. "Does He not understand that I chose my appearance to intimidate my enemies?" he complains. "No one is intimidated by this!" He spins around, gestures at the rather attractive human face he's been, once again, given with little explanation.
Lucius Malfoy, once again chosen to act as Voldemort's right hand, bows his head. "With all due respect, My Lord", he speaks. "Why are you going along with this instead of killing Potter?" It a utopian suggestion at this point – killing Harry Potter – but if anyone can do it, it must be Lord Voldemort, His fated nemesis. Everyone knows the prophecy nowadays, 'neither can live while the other survives', but now they hope for this line to be true for a different reason.
Voldemort laughs. "Because as long as I go along with his delusions, Lucius", he says, and smiles a cruel smile, "I'm winning." He turns back to face the mirror. "Now go fetch me Wormtail. I must send Harry Potter a courting gift."
"My boy, you are too young to take your lordships!", Dumbledore announces dramatically to the room. "You can not hold your Wizengamot seats until you're seventeen! And you can not claim your various bloodlines' properties until then either, so you will spend the next summer at your aunt and uncle's place again. I, as your Magical Guardian, have full authority to decide this!"
Ron, in the background, laughs and rolls his eyes. With a grin, he whispers to his sister: "He's having way too much fun with this."
Parts of Him know that none of this is real. Not in the linear sense. There's a certain logic to the universe, even for Wizards – time's arrow neither stands still nor reverses, it merely marches forward. Time Turners are the final extent of what Chronomancy can do. Some of His pieces know these facts, know that whatever He's doing can not comply with these established laws of reality.
Other parts of His shattered mind delve into the new worlds without question, accept rules He doesn't quite understand were made up by Him.
It is what it is and it is what He says.
When the first loop happens, Dumbledore is the one to offer them a theory about what might be going on. You see, Harry Potter killed the Dark Lord Voldemort, and He became the Master of Death. Not the first to carry that title, mind you, which makes the situation even more peculiar.
"Then why is He so different, Albus?", Lupin is the first to ask what everyone is thinking.
Dumbledore explains then that He had died in his crib in Godric's Hollow at just one year old, and He had died at age twelve with Basilisk Venom running through his veins, and He had died in the Forbidden Forest to yet another Killing Curse.
Death thrice defied, once for each of the Hallows, and now they see Him as their true master once and for all. Harry Potter had killed Voldemort, and a murder, no matter how, no matter what intention, shatters the soul for just a moment. Harry Potter had killed Voldemort, and He had shattered the moment He'd become Master of Death, and something not human had settled in the cracks of the crumbling soul.
"Why are you going along with this, Albus?", Minerva asks him over a cup of tea in his office.
Dumbledore's smile is dull when he answers. "I had to put Him through so much. If this is what He needs to heal then it's the least I can do." And maybe some part of him thinks he deserves this. Delayed but due penance for his past sins.
"I heard you're taking bets?", Sirius asks the twins casually when he finds them in one of Grimmauld Places many sitting rooms.
"Yep", they confirm in unison, grinning at him. "What do you wanna bet on? Creature inheritance maybe? Odds on Veelas and Demons are good this time around", Fred continues.
"Or maybe the latest lordships of our dear Harry?", George adds. "We have some great returns on a Prewett title. High risk, high reward. Bonus of fifty Galleons if you guess the new first name too."
"What about Ron and Ginny being evil?", Sirius wants to know, thinking his options through.
They both roll their eyes. "Oh come on, that's too easy. If you wanna make money, you gotta take a bigger risk, my friend", Fred tells him and throws and arm around his shoulder.
Sirius shakes his head. "Fine. Ten Galleons on His first name being Hadrian, twenty on the lordships including Gryffindor and Peverell", he decides and gathers the money from his pocket.
Fred takes it and writes his bets down in their book while George reminds him: "Payout happens in the next loop."
"I'll hold you to that, boys."
It's a terrifying realization that their memories don't align.
"Remember that one time when He was Godric Gryffindor's reincarnation?", Hermione grins over dinner.
Ron slowly shakes his head, says: "No. No, I don't." And a deep feeling of dread settles in their stomachs, the question of just what they have forgotten heavy on their minds.
The Goblins just go along with it. He's respectful to them, gives them new abilities, more knowledge, more agency. All in all, He treats them better than most Wizards they have dealt with in the past decades, so the play along.
There's an illegal betting pool among the Gringotts employees on what strange 'traditional greeting' He will use next, and a smaller group that entertains themselves by coming up with new ridiculous answers to said greetings.
There's currently a small controversy around Tarnok responding to "may your gold ever flow" with "and may your greed bleed your enemies dry" because many Goblins consider it inappropriate and think it perpetuates harmful stereotypes. And those are bad for business, after all.
Meanwhile, Gringotts' Director Ragnok is rather entertained by the fact that He has named him King of the Goblin Nation. Most other Goblins consider this odd, because the Goblin Nation is not a monarchy, but they let him have his fun for a few loops. The crown is a little much though.
He decides that Wizards have Magical Cores, that Parsel Magic is a thing, that lordship rings can detect poison, and the moment He says it it's always been that way. The past moves to comply with His words.
"We've always been at war with Eurasia", Hermione quotes the best example of dystopian retroactive continuity she knows, a bitter smile on her lips, and, when faced with confused stares, explains to her Pureblood friends that it's a line from a Muggle novel.
"Does it have a happy ending?", Ginny asks.
When the first loop happens, Voldemort wakes up and thinks, for just one mad second, that magic itself brought him back from the dead so he can finish what he started.
The next assumption is that the Elder Wand, not wanting to be parted from its owner, had saved him.
The last is that the Horcruxes must have done their job in a different way than he'd been expecting.
Either way, he assumes that he's supposed to be here in the past, that he must continue what he'd set out to do many years ago, right up until Harry Potter shows up at his doorstep. They don't fight then, because He keeps talking about how He understands that Voldemort isn't fighting against Muggles, he's fighting for the acceptance of Dark Magic in the Wizarding Society, and it's far from the truth and Voldemort informs Him of that.
It takes a few repeating days, waking up in a body that's a slightly older version of his human self, facing Potter who wields the Elder Wand like He was born for it, until he finally decides to play along to Potter's strange scheme.
Somewhere down the line, after some loops, at one point, Potter kisses him.
At another, they fall into bed together.
Voldemort is reasonably sure he can not love – something about Love Potions, his pathetic mother – but if that's what it takes for Potter to choose him over Dumbledore, he's not complaining.
They get used to their roles over time. Dumbledore plays the evil mastermind, Ron and Hermione the fake friends that secretly hoped for His downfall, Ginny manages to 'confess' to her Love Potion plots with a straight face. After all, that's what He wants – He resets the loop if they don't comply.
Molly doesn't take it well though.
Don't think she isn't acting just as flawlessly as the others. Yet the moment He is out of sight, the tears that cloud her eyes throughout her performances spill over.
"It's okay, mom", Ron reassures her, holding her in his arms as she cries.
"I'd never poison him", she sobs in return. "I don't even know half of the Potions He keeps talking about. I wouldn't do that to him. He's like my own son, I could never hurt him." She blinks against the tears. "I could never hurt him", she repeats.
"We all know, mom", Ginny promises. "He knows that too."
Ron reminds her: "Remember, you're doing him a favor. This is what he wants, okay? You're helping him."
It helps little, and she never gets used to playing the villain for the boy she's taken in as one of her own.
When the first loop happens, Cornelius Fudge is ecstatic that he's been given a chance to right his wrongs and prove to the Wizarding World once and for all that he's a good Minister, that they can rely on him.
In that first loop, he's executed right alongside Dolores Umbridge for crimes he doesn't remember committing, and crimes he remembers all too well.
"We need to find a way to end this", Snape informs the Order. "I will not keep playing some sort of" – he makes a disgusted face – "mentor figure for Him. He keeps inventing Potions that make no sense. A Loyalty Potion does certainly not exist."
"Have some patience with Him, please, Severus", Dumbledore asks him, a deep frown nowadays everpresent on his face. "He's been through a lot for his young age. This might be what He needs to heal."
"And how, exactly, is this our problem, Albus?"
Sirius rolls his eyes. "Oh you of all people should get that, Snivellus. It's not like he's the only one who makes the shit of his past everyone else's problem."
Snape obviously sneers at him and insults him right back. Come on, you didn't think he'd admit that it's a valid point.
He's a little boy, hated by his relatives, looking up to the burning summer sun and wishing for a better life.
He's a young Wizard lost in a strange new world.
He's a child soldier in a war that's His to end.
He's the Master of Death, bearer of the Hallows.
He's a puzzle, a mess of pieces that don't fit together, an incoherent picture.
He's a kid playing with its dollhouse.
He's Ouroboros.
He's a god.
In one loop, Harry gives Voldemort exactly what he's been asking for – a war against the Muggles.
Voldemort had miscalculated from the beginning. They may have magic, but they don't stand a chance against the Muggles with their large numbers and their horrible weapons, those infernal machines. It's carnage. A bloodbath beyond compare.
Harry doesn't seem surprised by that outcome. Maybe they've been through this already, Voldemort doesn't remember, but in this loop, they lose the war. The Wizarding World falls within a few months and its end is fatal, final.
Maybe he should have known better, because he'd seen in his youth what kind of destruction Muggles and their man-made magic are capable of.
It ends in a flash of light, bright like a supernova, that turns the night into day for a split second, and Voldemort looks at Harry who stand with His back to the explosion. He meets his gaze with a blank expression, radioactive green eyes glowing between the stark shadows on His face, calm, unbothered, and He – death, destroyer of worlds – is devastatingly beautiful as the mushroom cloud blooms behind him.
Turns out magic can do little against a nuclear blast.
"How old are we?", Hermione asks.
Nobody has an answer.
In the Ministry of Magic, Minister Cornelius Fudge paces in front of his desk. "I don't understand!", he complains to his Undersecretary. "He forgives the Death Eaters. He keeps marrying You-Know-Who, for Merlin's sake! And yet you and I are always the villains." He throws his hands up. "We're lucky if we only lose our jobs!"
"He's an incorrigible brat", Umbridge sneers. "The boy never learned how to behave, Cornelius."
Fudge stops pacing, an idea popping in his head. "Actually... did something happen in Hogwarts when I sent you there? You never told me much about that."
Umbridge, sure she hasn't done anything wrong, tells the Minister everything.
When she's done, Fudge stares at her silently for several seconds. Then, very slowly, he asks: "What the fuck, Dolores?"
They live too long, cycle after cycle, and when their minds reach a breaking point they see Him for what He is. How multiple shadows, too black, stretch and twist at His feet, how snakes writhe, bite their own tails, around that creature that is larger than life, that bends the edges of the world to fit into its confines. They see the crooked, shattered lines where boy and god collide and melt into one.
Their minds fray.
Shatter.
The God of Ouroboros acknowledges their suffering.
He takes their memories away, cuts them out like diseased tissue from a necrotizing wound, and He makes them anew. Sets them free in a new loop, until it becomes too much again. Yet another kind of cycle.
"We never laid a hand on Him", Petunia Dursley swears through her tears. "We were no saints, I know that, but we never hit Him. Dudley was a little rough with Him sometimes, but never like that. Those broken bones and scars and..." She sighs and shakes her head. "I don't know where He gets that from."
"I guess that kind of cruelty is easier for Him to understand", Remus answers coldly from the other side of the kitchen table.
Vernon and Dudley lie in the living room.
Harry was merciful in this loop. He at least let Petunia live.
"We weren't monsters", she tries to argue.
He shakes his head. "Yes, you were."
Lines begin to blur over the span of many loops, and apologies are made and old animosity is cast aside after a while. Order members and Death Eaters become friends – sometimes more – with time. What good is it to fight each other, in a world where death is trivial?
"I really think we should stage an intervention or something?", the lanky boy with wild brown curls suggests.
Ron furrows his brows. "Sorry mate, who are you again?"
"Theo Nott. Don't worry, we never talked to each other in the original timeline", the boy explains. "Anyways, guys... intervention? Therapy session? Anything?" They've all gathered in the Room of Requirement to discuss things. Nobody knows which loop they're on. It's hard to keep track of time when you keep forgetting large chunks of your life.
"We've tried that." Hermione frowns. "If we step a bloody toe out of line, He just resets the loop. And then the next few are usually really bad because He's mad at us."
"I don't mind the loops", Luna remarks.
"Yeah, 'cause you get to be all awesome and a Seer and stuff. I have to play the most annoying asshole in Wizarding Britain", Ron complains.
"At least you have a good reason to be here." Blaise folds his arms and leans back in his chair. "I didn't think He knows my name, to be honest."
Daphne scoffs. "Weren't you in the Slug Club with Him? I never even talked to the guy."
"Oh boo hoo." Draco rolls his eyes. "Does anyone remember that loop when He wanted to marry me? And what the Dark Lord did to me when he found out?" He shivers at the memory of Voldemort's wrath.
"Uh, I remember at least three loops with that premise, mate", Ron says. "Kinda your fault for trying to steal You-Know-Who's husband, y'know."
Draco glares at him. "Excuse you, I tried what? The Dark Lord can keep Potter, I don't want Him. I tried to tell Him that, for Merlin's sake! And now He keeps trying to pair me off with Hermione which isn't much better!" He looks at Hermione. "No offence."
"None taken", she replies with a pleasant smile. "You know I like your dad better."
"...yeah, that's still kinda weird", Ginny admits.
Blaise shrugs. "No, I'm with her on that one. Your father's kind of hot, Draco."
Theo slumps in his chair and runs a hand through his hair. "I fucking hate you people."
Dolores Umbridge knows her story will always end with a Dementor's Kiss. She does not change, doesn't even try to make amends. Instead she learns to face the creatures with dignity.
"I don't agree with this 'Alpha' and 'Omega' stuff", Hermione complains. "First of all, it feels like Pureblood Surpremacy with extra steps. I mean, what you're born as determines your standing in society. Great, it's not like we've fought a war about this." She throws her hands in the air. "And the biology makes so little sense. What's the evolutionary purpose? Oh and don't even get me started on how the study this seems to be based on has been debunked years ago..."
"I'm more worried about the Heat thing." Neville shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
Luna smiles serenely at him. "Oh, don't worry, I doubt you're important enough to this story to go into Heat."
The twins and Ginny almost falls off their chairs laughing at that, Remus barely hides his grin, and Molly keeps her back turned to them they're pretty sure they hear her giggle.
Sirius comes into the kitchen then, shirt halfway unbuttoned and hair in disarray, and he drops into one of the empty seats around the table. "I don't get this loop, but I definitely don't hate it", he proclaims with a wicked grin.
Only a moment later, Barty Crouch jr walks into the kitchen, looking equally dishevelled. "Hey", he greets them casually and takes the seat right next to Sirius. "I'm back."
"I think they can see that", Sirius tells him, slightly sarcastic but with a fond smile.
There's a long moment of silence. "Well... it's been a while?", Hermione offers eventually, which is not entirely true. While Barty's not around for every loop, he's been around more often lately, to Sirius' obvious delight. It's one of the odder relationships developed in the loops.
"I know, I think He forgets about me sometimes. It's good to be back though." Barty's eyes turn to Sirius. "Especially for such an interesting loop."
Sirius rolls his eyes, leans over and kisses him.
Another silence, then Ginny asks: "So, which one of you is the Alpha?"
Ron looks at his sister with wide eyes. "Why would you ask that?", he demands, scandalized, and the room bursts into laughter again.
The Death Eaters would never admit it, but they fear Harry Potter far more than they fear their Lord. There's only so much Voldemort can do to them. Pain is temporary. Death, in these circumstances, not even an inconvenience.
But Potter can make their lives hell with just a few words. He speaks terrible fates into existence, punishes those who wrong Him not only for this lifetime but for many to come. Those who catch His ire will suffer for many loops, like being cast into the nine circles of hell for one wrong remark, a failure to play along to His delusions.
No one wants to feel the wrath of a newborn god.
"Do we have to keep giving Him seats in the Wizengamot?", Amelia Bones complains. "Seriously, Cornelius, I can't keep up with all the Pureblood traditions He comes up with. It's exhausting. And that's not to mention that He keeps renaming the other members. I genuinely don't know what Lord Greengrass is currently called."
Fudge frowns at her. "You try telling Him no then. I just managed to get through one cycle without losing my job, Amelia, I'm not going to ruin this."
"You slept with Lucius Malfoy?", Ron screams at her, hurt and betrayed and furious. His voice echoes through Hogwarts' empty hallway.
"What's the issue with that, Ronald?", Hermione snaps back. "And don't say it's the age difference, because I'm pretty sure we're over a bloody century old at this point."
"The issue? We're together, for Merlin's sake!"
"No, we're not! We broke up twelve loops ago!"
"Hermione, we're on loop ten or something."
And then they fall silent, anger vanishing as they realize what has happened. "You don't remember that one", she says after a long moment, quietly, barely above a whisper. It's always strange to speak about the amnesia, to know that you've forgotten something, that a large chunk of your life is missing and it's just out of reach. You can try to grasp it, fingers brushing at the fringes, but you'll never get it back.
Ron sighs, flashes a tightlipped smile. "Well, I guess it's all good than." He shrugs. "I should have figured that's the reason."
He turns to walk away, but she calls him back. "Ron!" When he turns around, she says: "It's okay if you start to hate Him." A pause. "I do too."
He nods, and leaves without a verbal reply.
Wormtail hesitantly pushes the door to a usually unused room in the Ministry open. "Uhm... hello?", he greets the gathered people with a small wave of his hand. "Is this the support group meeting?"
Rita Skeeter smiles brightly at him. "Oh yes dear, come in", she invites him, beckons him closer. He enters the room fully, steps towards the group of chairs where Minister Fudge is talking to Vernon Dursley, while Dudley next to his father is munching on a plate of cookies. Dolores Umbridge and Petunia Dursley are chatting animatedly with each other.
Above them, a wonky banner with the worlds "Perpetual Villain Support Group" hangs from the ceiling.
Rita guides to one of the empty chairs. "Don't be shy, we're all friends here. Peter was it, right? Come on, tell us." All eyes turn to him. "What's your story?"
It's fascinating how priorities can shift over a long enough amount of time. It takes several loops, but eventually Voldemort stops thinking that Muggles are the problem. Maybe Harry is right, after all.
The loops are often similar, almost the same, and he could get used to fighting for Dark Magic and winning.
He could get used to his human face too.
There's a god in his bed, one that's cold to the touch and whose eyes glow like the Killing Curse in the dark. They are both far from human, and their shared monstrosity-inhumanity-divinity is as close to love as they'll ever get.
Harry brings his parents back to life and it's a shock for everyone, but most of all Severus Snape.
He meets Lily in his office at Hogwarts and she's as beautiful as he remembers her to be, deep green eyes and dark red hair, the face of an angel that should not exist in this purgatory.
They talk. Finally.
It doesn't go well, of course. Did you really think it would?
"How dare you treat my son like that, Severus?", she ends up screaming at him, fire in her eyes and fury in her voice. "He was a child. He never even knew His father, for god's sake! So what's His great crime then? That He dares to look like James?" She shakes her head. "I can't believe you're still holding that grudge, Severus. After all this time?"
He lowers his eyes and says, quietly: "Always."
Some of them start to pray for the Final Loop. A cult born from desperation.
Of course their pleas fall on deaf ears. When's the last time a god ever cared about his disciples' cries for help?
It's been years since Azkaban. Decades, centuries. Millennia? Yet it's fresh in Sirius' mind, the cold cells and sleepless nights, the fear and hunger. The smell of the ocean still makes him nauseous.
He's grateful for every loop when Barty is with him, because they understand each other's nightmares. He gets why Sirius wakes in cold sweat when his mind returns to the stone walls of his cell at night, just like Sirius understands Barty thrashing in his sleep, pleading with his father to spare his mother.
It helps to share your bed with someone who's lived the same horrors as you did.
"How do we know the timeline we call the original one is really the first?", Hermione asks them. "I mean, are we sure He didn't make it up too? Maybe we just forgot that it was just another loop. How do we know it was the first?" She looks desperately at the others. "How do we know we exist?" Tears stain her eyes, her cheeks. "How do we know He didn't make us up? How do we know we're not just puppets that became self-aware?"
Another loop finished, another fight won. Dumbledore is defeated, Dark Magic is legal, Voldemort is made Minister for Magic, he and Harry get married. The same ending he's seen countless times before, but Voldemort doesn't mind. He stands next to Harry, hand in corpse-cold hand, and waits for the cycle to begin anew.
Their bodies feel the weight of innumerable years like a phantom pain, as if they are aware that they should wither away even when they are renewed time and time again.
It's a strange feeling to be eternally young while your body yearns for decay, for a death that lasts.
You know it's wrong. You know Albus Dumbledore was not a monster, you know Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger were great friends, you know Lord Voldemort was the villain of the story. Why do you love to see them play their antithetical roles? Why is this twisted reality so carthatic for you?
He looks at the puzzle pieces, and He thinks that maybe the mess of scattered parts is the picture He's been searching all along. He's doing something good, isn't He? What does it matter that the many pieces of His mind refuse to fit together? A thousand voices screaming in His mind, it doesn't matter which of them is Him because they all are. Thing's a great. The good people live. The bad people die. Love wins.
It's utopia.
They keep praying for the best timeline, though they've stopped calling it the Final Loop.
It's easy to play along, after all, to be told what role to take. Many of them wouldn't know what to do with themselves if they were suddenly free from the loops, if they were forced to make their own choices and live with their own consequences.
Freedom is slavery.
They love the God of Ouroboros.