Honestly, I had expected to die that day.

I never expected it to be that easy. He had more than a century on me, the other teachers were sitting right there, should've been able to spot where the spells had come from and started firing back in my direction. Every last one of those bastards who'd been hand-picked by Dumbledore went and panicked, even the only competent dueler on staff. Snape probably would've figured me out in an instant, but Snape up and quit years ago.

Fun fact: More than seventy percent of the human body is made of water, and virtually all land-crawling vertebrates can't survive without their lungs.

Why'd I do it? I did it for all Dumbledore's victims. Mostly for Harry and my family, but I did it for all of them, even the Slytherins.

Yeah, I did want to stand out, and I guess I do stand out now, but that wasn't why I did it no matter what Dumbledore's lot says. That man wasn't a hero, and I'm not like one of those school shooters you hear about these days, even though I killed someone.

None of this would've happened if Dumbledore hadn't gone and tried to test his "Child of Prophesy". That so-called prophesy destroyed three families, the Longbottoms, Harry's, and mine.

How? Well the Longbottoms all died when You-Know-Who went after them that Halloween. They managed to take him with them, but...After the Longbottoms died, Dumbledore went and told the Potters that You-Know-Who was going to come back and that there was a prophesy that said that their son was going to defeat him. Uncle James believed him, but Harry's mum didn't. When Harry's mum tried to take Harry and run off to the muggle world, someone found evidence that she was the Death Eater who'd been leaking information to You-Know-Who near the end of the war, and she got sent to Azkaban. She died there before they found out she was innocent.

I'm getting there.

Me and Harry met when we were seven and became best mates after that. When we got to Hogwarts, someone started trying to kill Harry. We'd thought it had something to do with the object that Dumbledore had Harry's dad pick up for him, so we, Harry, me, and a girl we'd befriended named Hermione started looking into it. It was only later that I realized that all the protections around that Philosopher's Stone thing had been tailored with us in mind. I mean, a flying challenge, a chess set, a troll, and a logic puzzle, all perfect for the three of us.

Turned out that the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was waiting at the end of Dumbledore's little obstacle course. The bastard killed Harry.

Of course my family was angry. I'd gotten hurt and Harry was practically family considering how often he and Uncle James were over. Let's just say that as far as we were concerned, Dumbledore's name was mud and we didn't make a secret of the fact.

Well, one day after we went shopping in Diagon Alley, Dad found Ginny writing in a diary that she'd said turned up in one of her schoolbooks. When she mentioned that it wrote back, Dad got suspicious, told her that he would have it checked out, and if it was safe, he'd return it to her. Dad brought it to the Ministry. Turned out it was a Dark artifact that had belonged to You-Know-Who, and Dad got arrested for having it. People started calling him a Death Eater and us Junior Death Eaters after that. If it weren't for Bill and Charlie, we would've lost the house and had to go live with Aunt Muriel.

Seeing as the Hermione girl was gone and none of the other Gryffindors would have anything to do with me, I had a lot of time to sit and think. I started seeing things I didn't like, like the fact that Dumbledore was trying to get rid of Slytherin and kill all the Muggleborns while keeping his hands clean.

What do you mean, what do I mean? It's so obvious, that I'm surprised that nobody else had spotted it.

With the Muggleborns, they're just barely beginning to wrap their heads around the fact that magic is real, and they suddenly get dropped in a whole different world. Instead of having someone teach them what you do and don't do so they don't go and piss off the people who are all about Tradition and Manners, they're left to wander about and maybe pick a few things up as they go along. The thing is, they don't pick up all that much, and tend to try to hang on to what's familiar to them even if it's something that's Not Done. Most of that lot don't even know who Beetle the Bard is, much less why you're always supposed to offer your Wand Hand to shake. A few Lefties have nearly gotten themselves killed over that one, since you always offer your Right hand in the Muggle world, even if you're Left-handed.

As for the Slytherins...Say, I wanted to get rid of Gryffindor permanently, what do you think I'd do?

Nah, there'd just be more of them the next year, and I'd be painted as a mass-murdering monster.

Honestly? You never even considered arranging things so society does the job for you?

It would be long-term, but if I wanted to leave it as a legacy...If I was part of the school and later in charge of the school and wanted to get rid of Gryffindor, I'd start downplaying their positive qualities, and start pointing out the negative ones, painting the Gryffindors as hot-headed, ill-mannered, bloodthirsty barbarians. Instead of laughing off the pranks that tend to more often be pulled by Gryffindors than the other houses, I'd start calling them attacks and punishing the pranksters accordingly. After a while, people would start finding examples of Gryffindor violence on their own, and when a Gryffindor or a former Gryffindor commits a violent crime, it would be less about the individual and more about the fact that they were Gryffindor. Eventually, people would start saying you couldn't turn your back on a Gryffindor 'cause they'd stick a knife in it to watch you bleed out for fun, and start believing that all Gryffindors belonged in St. Mungo's for the safety of society.

Now, ask yourself why when some Blood Supremacist bastard goes and attacks a Muggle or a Muggleborn the first assumption is that they're Slytherin, and when a Slytherin or former Slytherin accomplishes something good, there's not one peep about the house they were in.

I used to be one of the lot that believed all Slytherins were evil right up until my own housemates started telling me that me and my brothers all belonged in Slytherin and should've been sorted there. My own house, and they went and sabotaged Perce's work so his grades tanked and he didn't get any job offers, and went and ganged up on Fred and George, sending them to the Hospital Wing for over a month. Nobody would even talk to Ginny, and she went all quiet and blamed herself for...Well, you know what happened. I think the only reason they pretty much just ignored me when they weren't telling me I belonged in Slytherin was because I was "Just another Weasley".

After seeing that Dumbledore was what was wrong with society, and that he'd have to go if anything was going to get fixed, I started thinking of ways in which someone could get rid of him. I didn't really expect my plans to go anywhere, but I ended up hitting on a track that I thought looked like it might work.

Like I said earlier, I fully expected to die that day.

Dark magic? Dark magic? I used only three spells that day, all of them were either O.W.L. level or below, and not a one of them was classified as Dark.

How'd I do it? I've told this story a hundred times before, and will probably be telling it until the day I die. I put on something the Muggles call a ghillie suit to break up my outline before I disillusioned myself, snuck up behind the Staff Table, turned the water in Dumbledore's body into ice, and vanished his lungs in case he survived the first spell. Humans can't survive without their lungs you know.

Like I said, I never expected it to be that easy.