Discarded Draft <Hogwarts: The Non-Existent Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts>

Chapter 1: Voldemort, I Am the Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor!

In the center of the North Sea, a solitary, jagged island stood alone.

The craggy black rocks, like eroded spines, tore viciously through the churning, ink-black sea.

Azkaban prison perched upon it, its deep gray towers rough and cold, stabbing into the leaden, low-hanging sky like pale bone hands struggling to break the water's surface.

The storm raged without end, lashing the reefs with salty, bone-chilling seawater, waves shattering into pale white foam that slammed against the icy walls.

In the narrow corridors beyond the iron-barred windows, hopeless frost condensed, shadows writhed silently, Dementors sucked away all joy, accompanied by the mad howls of the prisoners.

The cell at the corner by the coast was the sole exception.

Sirius lay stiff and straight, numb as a corpse, only the faint rise and fall of his chest proving he was still alive.

A sudden gasp for air made him whip his head around.

It was a Muggle-dressed Eastern man, with sharp features and perfectly sculpted muscles.

Even he had to admit the man was stunningly handsome, even if at this moment his face was pale and covered in cold sweat.

"How did you get to Azkaban?" Sirius asked.

His words seemed to trigger some kind of keyword.

"No, no one can judge me! Screw you, God!"

The man spoke words Sirius couldn't understand, and his body was visibly enveloped by a black cloak. In an instant, the entire cell was covered in frost. The cloaked figure passed through the wall and plunged into the sea.

"Gone again. Why did I say 'again'?" Sirius stared at the empty cell, convinced he had probably gone mad.

Outside Hogsmeade village, a bountiful manor lay quietly.

The gentle, fertile slopes spread out like a soft carpet, tenderly cradling the honey-colored stone walls.

Madam Rosmerta's house basked in it, its red-tiled roof flowing with a honey-like luster under the nearly transparent, azure sky.

Eternal sunlight poured down, generously soaking the vast, manicured lawn. Every blade of grass was bursting with emerald vitality, shimmering with tiny golden glints.

Through the open window, white gauze curtains were gently lifted and drifted by the warm breeze, carrying the scent of autumn and the melodious chirping of birds.

Li Lin lay sideways on a soft arm, his straight nose being teased like a brush by a woman twirling her pale golden curls, her azure eyes full of tenderness and affection.

"Stop it, Rosmerta," Li Lin mumbled. "I have an interview today."

Her voluptuous body pressed against his back. After a cleaning charm, the dry, soft bed tugged at his drowsiness, making him unwilling to wake.

"Can't you just skip work?"

"If I skip work, will you support me?"

"I'll support you."

Li Lin was suddenly wide awake. He sat up immediately.

His gaze lingered on her long, fair legs for only a moment before he stepped into the bathroom.

"Darling, you look radiant today too." A silvery voice came from the mirror.

Li Lin looked at his haggard reflection in the mirror. "I, Li Lin, have been laid low by wine and women, so haggard. From today onward... I quit drinking!"

It had been three years since he escaped Azkaban and started living off Madam Rosmerta's charity.

He was twenty-one now, no longer young.

He still remembered the song the truck driver had played: "We are all living with all our might."

Ninety-nine deaths in Azkaban.

The cause of death was monotonous: kissed to death by Dementors.

The process of death was tortuous: killed in various ways by Sirius.

Every single time, Sirius managed to attract the Dementors' attention in a different way.

But... the inside of a Dementor's stomach was quite warm. It even contained the memories of the souls it had devoured.

And each time he died and returned, his body and soul accumulated positive memories.

Finally, on the ninetieth time, he gained magical power. On the ninety-seventh, he successfully transformed into a Dementor. On the ninety-ninth, he crossed the North Sea without reverting to his original form and drowning, reaching Hogsmeade.

However, this also resulted in him becoming completely non-existent.

Li Lin pulled himself from his memories, drew his Yew Wand, and pointed it at himself. "Avada Kedavra!"

Accompanied by the sound of a massive object whooshing through the air, a flash of deadly green light passed by, and Li Lin's haggardness was washed away.

This wasn't a death reset, but a double negative making a positive.

He was non-existence, living dark magic. Curses were merely his sustenance. Neither alive nor dead, an eternally existing non-existence.

As a half-wizard, he had a premonition that he would stop aging in three years, his appearance frozen in time forever.

But that didn't mean he couldn't be bound or banished.

As an immortal anomaly, no matter how careful or cautious he was, infinite time would make the probability of risk approach 100%.

He needed the ability to return from death. He needed to grow stronger.

Hogwarts, ancient repository of vast magical knowledge, held the best choice for him—the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor position, cursed by the strongest dark wizard.

In the Hog's Head Inn, Li Lin steeled his resolve.

Across from him sat the greatest white wizard of this age—Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore.

That seemingly ordinary, goat-stinking, disheveled bartender was the equally remarkable brother of this great white wizard.

"May I ask, how should I address you?" the greatest white wizard began. "Madam Rosmerta's foreign boyfriend, the Robin Hood of Knockturn Alley, the Dark Wizard Bane, Batman Bruce Wayne, or Li Lin."

Without any visible motion, his voice was confined to this small space.

Only the Dumbledore brothers and Li Lin could hear it.

"The future Defense Against the Dark Arts professor," Li Lin said calmly.

"What makes you think I would hire you?" Dumbledore replied. "To give up Quirinus for you? To be worthy of this position, he undertook a year of practical experience—the most dangerous Albanian Forest, vampire lairs, giant camps—he set foot in all of them."

Li Lin pulled a shrike from his pocket, lowered his head, and gently sucked.

Frost instantly spread across the entire tabletop. The bird's translucent soul-shadow vanished into his mouth.

His throat rolled. Li Lin opened his pale gray eyes. "This is the reason."

The shrike's chest still rose and fell, but it had become a walking corpse.

Dumbledore was silent for a moment, then said, "You're hired."

He produced a letter of acceptance, already prepared. Li Lin took it.

Crack!

The moment he received it, his figure twisted, collapsed inward, and vanished from the spot.

"Today, we close early." The bartender stopped wiping his glass.

He was like a sovereign of the dark world. At his command, the motley crowd gathered in the inn scattered.

The crackling sounds of Apparition came one after another.

A few young hotheads who had come to the inn for fun wanted to say something, but seeing this, they could only slink away in disgrace.

With the last guest gone, the pig's head on the wooden sign stopped bleeding. The door slammed shut, cutting off the last sliver of light.

"Albus Dumbledore, my saintly brother, are you sure you haven't gone senile? Hiring a humanoid Dementor as a professor? Hogwarts is a school, not a freak circus."

"Of course I understand. But he is Batman," Dumbledore said.

Chapter Two: The Dark Figure of Knockturn Alley

"I am the dark shadow. I am the embodiment of fear. I am... Batman!"

"He is unpredictable, elusive. His black cloak can swallow any curse. No one knows what lies beneath that mask."

"Besides you, Harry, he's the only one who has survived the Killing Curse."

Outside Knockturn Alley, Hagrid spoke with fervor.

"What are you looking at? You think I'm Batman?"

He swaggered into the alley, dragging Harry along, occasionally intimidating the surrounding dark wizards. A trembling old woman passing by seemed to be in danger of getting kicked by him.

"In the old days, I wouldn't have dared bring you here."

"Back then, this place was full of scum—the pure-blood families' black gloves, the dregs of the magical world."

"It's still about the same now, but the real bad seeds are all in Azkaban."

"Here we can buy a lot of cheap foreign stuff." He pointed to a tower at the end of the alley. "All thanks to Batman. When the lighthouse lights up and Batman's mark appears in the sky, we know he's coming."

"Enough, Rubeus. He's just a criminal." Rufus Scrimgeour, former head of the Auror Office's Incident Department (the magical world's police commissioner), stepped out of Borgin and Burkes.

Harry looked up. The man was like a lion—though his leg was a bit lame and gray streaked his tawny hair and eyebrows, he was still vigorous and spirited. His amber eyes still blazed with a sharpness and keenness that rivaled any young man's.

"He's just a criminal," Hagrid mimicked Scrimgeour's tone mockingly. "He just did what your Ministry of Magic should have done but never could. I know why you're hostile to him."

"Because of him, you were demoted and sent to the front lines."

"Is it just personal reasons?" The pink-haired girl behind Scrimgeour, also in Auror uniform, asked boldly, showing no regard for his higher rank and seniority.

"Tonks, no," Scrimgeour said. His gaze couldn't help but drift toward the tower. "Because he is the hero the magical world should have but doesn't need right now. So we will catch him. Because he can bear it. Because he is not our hero. He is a silent guardian, a watchful protector. He... is the Dark Knight."

"Dark Knight? He's a coward!" Mad-Eye Moody emerged from the crowd.

Hagrid was about to get angry, but seeing it was Moody, he asked in confusion, "Shouldn't you be on his side?"

Harry instinctively retreated behind Hagrid.

This old man, with one wooden leg and a face full of scars, was like the Frankenstein monster he'd seen while secretly watching TV.

No, even more terrifying. On the old man's rugged face was a coin-sized blue false eye that roamed freely in its socket, at one point even flipping around to show only the white.

"Harry Potter?" The old man squeezed out a smile that could only be described as a horror movie. "Good boy. When you sense danger, you know to find cover first."

Cover Hagrid pressed on. "Why? He's clearly a hero!"

"If he wants me to take that back, he'd better send Lucius Malfoy's head to my office," Moody snorted. "Following that ridiculous no-kill rule, clinging to the law. When Voldemort (a wave of gasps erupted around them) was around, we Aurors were allowed to use the Unforgivable Curses."

"But Dumbledore..."

Hagrid's words were roughly cut off by Moody, "Because he's a coward too."

"The appearance of the Bat exposed Albus's true face. Fudge isn't his puppet, just a useless fool who rode his reputation to power."

Harry's eyes widened. If he remembered correctly, Fudge was the Minister for Magic, the most powerful man in the British wizarding world.

"I've only now realized that Albus is afraid of wielding power. He genuinely only wants to be a schoolteacher, not the man I thought he was—juggling education and the Ministry alike."

"That cunning pig Fudge made everyone believe he was Dumbledore's avatar, that all his decrees were written after consulting Albus by letter."

"Even Scrimgeour is better than that pig Fudge."

Moody was panting, ready to tear into Scrimgeour next.

But then an excited commotion suddenly erupted from the crowd.

"There it is again."

"Who is it this time?"

"Aha!" Hagrid pumped his fist excitedly. "Look, Moody, you old fool, see who's hanging up there!"

Harry followed his gaze. It was... silver shorts woven from light, two hairy legs... a figure hanging upside down!

Platinum-blond hair cascaded like a waterfall, though it was rather thin.

A wealthy wizard with thinning hair.

Harry drew his conclusion with a touch of sharpness.

"Lucius Malfoy." Moody recognized the man.

Scrimgeour whipped out his wand, looking around wildly. "On alert! After the Hanged Man comes the Nightfall Sin Chapter, and... the Bat himself."

But he was the only one on alert.

Tonks, and even Moody who had called the Bat a coward, made no move.

The Aurors only halfheartedly drew their wands, their expressions more like tourists in Knockturn Alley.

The dark wizards, on the other hand, looked warily around them, but their eyes held only fear and a hint of reverence.

Harry was about to ask what the Nightfall Sin Chapter was when darkness began spreading from the tower top, as if someone had tipped ink to stain the sky's canvas.

The ink stopped at the boundary between Knockturn Alley and Diagon Alley, creating a strange spectacle of light and shadow interwoven.

Then came a sound like tearing cloth, neat and uniform, as red stars appeared one by one.

They were bats, flapping their wings!

A cloud of bats converged atop the tower, and a pitch-black figure materialized.

An elegant top hat, a billowing cloak, a tailored suit, gloves, leather shoes, and a walking cane—all black enough to swallow light.

The lower half of his face was visible, his teeth stark white against a split grin.

He seemed to possess a strange magic; the moment he appeared, everyone fell silent, holding their breath.

Scrimgeour raised his wand futilely. "Stupefy!"

The red magical ray, enough to make everyone nearby's scalp crawl, was swallowed by the darkness.

The master of darkness calmly pulled a black parchment from his breast pocket, his movements unhurried. "Lucius Malfoy. Charges: multiple counts of bribing Ministry officials, funding the terrorist organization the Death Eaters, multiple direct and indirect plots to attack Muggles and Muggle-born wizards..."

With each charge he read, a gleaming line of text appeared on the tower.

The crimes on the tower were clearer, precise down to the time, place, location, person, and amount.

Throughout, Scrimgeour kept casting spells, all of them drowned in the darkness.

The Lord of Darkness made no move until the parchment burned away after he finished reading. Then he gave a slight bow, stepped back, and vanished into the bats taking flight once more.

The darkness faded. Scrimgeour knelt in the light, the reflection of silken underwear shining on his sweat-drenched face.

Thunderous applause erupted from Knockturn Alley.

Chapter 3: The Court of Owls

"If it were that ostrich Fudge, he'd just bury his head in the sand in his office and pretend not to see." Moody snorted. "The Aurors need more Scrimgeours."

"Won't Dumbledore make a move yet?" Scrimgeour struggled to his feet.

"A free magic show that doesn't break the Secrecy Act, and it punishes evil while promoting good—why stop it?" Moody raised an eyebrow. "Don't look at me. That's Albus's exact words."

"What were you just busy with?"

"Hosting a magic show. The assistant was a bit uncooperative, so fetching him cost me some time."

At 18a, south side of Diagon Alley, Obscurus Books headquarters.

Li Lin had changed into a forget-me-not blue wizard's robe. His ink-black hair was slightly disheveled, but his charm remained undiminished.

A bald wizard sat across from him.

"I'm wasting my time here too, am I not?" Li Lin raised an eyebrow, his tone aggressive. "You should understand what a great favor it is that I'm entrusting my book to you for publication."

"I chose you because you worked with Newt and have experience publishing Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them."

"A textbook for a non-elective course at Hogwarts—you should know the profits behind it."

"But now, just because of pressure from the Trimble Family, you're losing your composure and wasting my precious time."

The bald wizard wiped cold sweat from his brow. "But the Trimble Family holds a seat on the Hogwarts Board of Governors, and Quentin Trimble, author of The Dark Arts Self-Defense Guide, once served as Hogwarts Headmaster."

"That book has been used as the textbook for Defense Against the Dark Arts for centuries."

"Even when past professors added their own works as teaching materials, none of them removed this book."

"Stop right there—it's just not enough profit," Li Lin countered. "Because you think I'll only last one term, and my textbook Dark Arts Defense: Three Years of Basics, Four Years of Simulation is just one volume, not split into parts, and it's very cheap."

"Since you know that..."

"The Trimble Family won't have any more objections." Li Lin cut off the bald wizard. "We all know where the real objections come from—the Humanoid Alliance."

"Goblins, centaurs, veela, saltwater merpeople, giants... these races that can truly threaten wizards and are legally qualified to be called 'people' have never truly appeared in any Defense Against the Dark Arts textbook, regardless of country or language."

"But my book is different."

"You just wanted to bargain with me, thinking I'm some greenhorn who knows nothing."

"Since you—" "The Humanoid Alliance won't have any objections either," Li Lin interrupted the bald wizard again. "Because they think I'll only stay one year. Alright, time's up. I should go."

Li Lin stepped into the fireplace, where green flames flickered. When he reappeared, he was in the second-floor guest bedroom of the Leaky Cauldron, where another Li Lin was already sitting.

The Li Lin who emerged from the fireplace turned into a shadow, sliding across the floor and merging into the Li Lin across from him.

"Good work, Fou. I hope the Humanoid Alliance can find a way to kill me too." Li Lin smiled. "Too bad, even Voldemort can't kill me. Maybe he's too weak."

What had been at Obscurus Books headquarters was a Lethifold—another non-being that could only be driven away by the Patronus Charm, never destroyed.

While searching for ways to kill himself, he had forcibly merged with it, gaining control over darkness and a separable avatar.

His ability to absorb fear and shapeshift came from a Boggart, a non-being that could only be driven away by the Riddikulus Charm.

Combined with the magical knowledge he had acquired at Azkaban University, this forged what people called the Dark Arts Bane, the Dark Knight who punished evil and upheld justice.

Yet even someone like him couldn't fully control the flow of battle.

He recalled the fight inside Gringotts. Voldemort truly was the strongest Dark Wizard—not just some fool who only went "hehehe" while casting killing curses.

Even using Quirrell's body, Li Lin had witnessed all kinds of curses, many of which he couldn't even name.

A curse that made the heart pound violently until it shattered.

A curse that used sight as a medium to burn the eyes and even the brain.

A curse that sacrificed one's own blood to amplify spell power.

A curse that twisted the air to erode the target's life.

A curse that used shadows as a medium—the Shadow-Stomping Curse.

But none of those curses were as terrifying as the Love Charm flowing through Harry's blood.

Facing Harry, Quirrell and Voldemort could only use spells that wouldn't endanger his life to restrain him, resort to physical means like choking, or use Avada Kedavra—a curse with no countercurse that pierced through non-corporeal magic to kill outright.

Li Lin recalled the brief glimpse he'd caught in Knockturn Alley. "That could kill me."

Is Love Magic also my weakness?

Ridiculous—am I the Dark Lord, or is Voldemort?

"So now..." Li Lin tapped his finger on the table. "I just have to wait for school to start."

"School start?" The window flew open. A pink-haired girl moved as nimbly as a cat, her long legs in black stockings bending slightly before she leaped through the air, twisted her body, and landed in Li Lin's arms. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "My Dark Knight is now a professor?"

She blinked her big eyes. "So, Professor, who do you want as your teaching assistant today? Narcissa Malfoy?"

Her hair turned pale gold, her skin grew pallid, her eyes shifted to light blue, her lips thinned, her chin narrowed, and her calves—full with healthy muscle tone—became more slender...

"Nymphadora Tonks." Li Lin lowered his head. "My Catwoman."

The girl's breath quickened. Her pink, bubblegum-like curls burst open like a maiden's heart.

As if by memetic infection, when the girl, furious at the Ministry of Magic's injustice and preparing to join the seemingly dormant Order of the Phoenix, she had met the Dark Knight and chosen Catwoman as her codename.

"Catwoman, the Bat's ranks are growing again."

In a grand hall that resembled a Roman Colosseum, the pure-bloods murmured among themselves.

"Malfoy has fallen, following Crabbe and Goyle."

"Who's next?"

"We must act."

"Dark magic doesn't work on him—we can use White Magic."

"White Magic? We can't use any spell that truly qualifies as White Magic."

"Umbridge—she can cast the Patronus Charm."

"That's because she believes herself righteous."

"Who's willing to try, risking spell backlash and death?"

"Isn't there Draco Malfoy? We can groom him into the Light Knight."

"Right, doesn't the Bat want to punish evil and uphold order? We can groom another—a madman who only wants to watch the world burn."

"Voldemort is enough. Do we need another?"

"This time, we don't seek geniuses. Just a madman, creating chaos within the rules. How about calling him the Joker?"

"Maybe we can also bring in Muggles, so Dumbledore won't stand idly by. I have a lab in the Muggle world, and a few freaks were just born there. I call them Mr. Freeze and the Scarecrow."

"Don't forget the Purifiers who hate wizards, and the assassin codenamed Deathstroke."

"Maybe we can even bring in the Humanoid Alliance. I have a half-giant under me named Bane."

"How about we pick a name for the organization too?"

"The Court of Owls."

"We are the true rulers of this world. The Bat's nemesis is none other than the Owl."