"Keep playing your part. Open the door for Potter, pour him tea, listen to him talk. Didn't Dumbledore tell Potter to ask you for help? Use your specialty. Put on a show for him. Whatever Potter needs, give it to him. Permits, time, locations—you can give him all of it. Let him investigate. Let him search. Let him piece together his 'truth,' bit by bit. Once he finishes, he'll discover that the picture he put together isn't the one he thought it was. But by then, it won't matter anymore. Because everyone will have seen that picture. And that picture will tell them—Dumbledore's golden boy is nothing special."
The curve of Madara's lips widened slightly. Wide enough to be called a smile. Yet there was no warmth in it. It was like a blade sharpened too keenly, flashing once in the darkness before slipping back into a place without light.
When Lockhart looked up again, the armchair was empty. The cushion was not indented, the armrests held no residual warmth, as though no one had ever sat there. Only the lingering fluctuations of magic in the air reminded him that someone had once been there.
Ripples spread through the air from the void, centered around a blurred human silhouette. The outline grew fainter and thinner, like an ink stain soaked in water, fading from dark to pale, from something to nothing. A few seconds later, the ripples flattened completely, and the air became still again, as though nothing had happened.
Lockhart knelt in the darkness without moving. His lips were curved upward, in exactly the same arc as Madara's. It was not that he had copied Madara. Madara had carved that curve into him, carved it so deeply that it had reached his bones.
He stood, turned around, and walked