Maybe that’s a red herring, and the true explanation was given in the previous chapter:
The Dark Lord is Harry. The power he does not know and which will destroy him at the end is:
“Indifference,” Harry whispered aloud, the secret of a spell he would never be able to cast
Unlike Quirrell, Harry considers the rest of humans to be his equals. At some moment he will need their help to change the laws of physics, but they will all ignore him. Later Harry will grow old and die. Or someone will kill him for some trivial reason. There will be no one else like him in this universe, so finally the entropy will tear the stars apart.
Batman is a murderer no less than the Joker, for all the lives the Joker took that Batman could’ve saved by killing him. ch. 85
“It’s not fair to the innocent bystanders to play at being Batman if you can’t actually protect everyone under that code.” ch. 91
Harry had no intention of saying it out loud, of course, but now that he’d failed decisively to prevent any deaths during his quest, he had no further intention of being restrained by the law or even the code of Batman.ch. 97.
Even in the world of comic books, the only reason a superhero like Batman even looks successful is that the comic-book readers only notice when Important Named Characters die, not when the Joker shoots some random nameless bystander to show off his villainy.
Maybe that’s a red herring, and the true explanation was given in the previous chapter:
The Dark Lord is Harry. The power he does not know and which will destroy him at the end is:
Unlike Quirrell, Harry considers the rest of humans to be his equals. At some moment he will need their help to change the laws of physics, but they will all ignore him. Later Harry will grow old and die. Or someone will kill him for some trivial reason. There will be no one else like him in this universe, so finally the entropy will tear the stars apart.
(Just kidding.)
Except Ron, whom he considers unworthy of existence.
Ron’s an NPC in Harry’s mind. The Joker Oath he took a few chapters back was aimed at people like Ron.
Joker Oath? remind me?
Batman is a murderer no less than the Joker, for all the lives the Joker took that Batman could’ve saved by killing him. ch. 85
“It’s not fair to the innocent bystanders to play at being Batman if you can’t actually protect everyone under that code.” ch. 91
Harry had no intention of saying it out loud, of course, but now that he’d failed decisively to prevent any deaths during his quest, he had no further intention of being restrained by the law or even the code of Batman.ch. 97.
More immediately relevant:
Even in the world of comic books, the only reason a superhero like Batman even looks successful is that the comic-book readers only notice when Important Named Characters die, not when the Joker shoots some random nameless bystander to show off his villainy.
Joachim has the relevant bits. I came up with an new term for it, though, because I don’t know of a better way to refer to it.