Voldemort on Wall Street, Part 3: The Corporate Retreat

An unofficial Harry Potter parody. Blackthorn Capital, its portfolio company, and the office characters in this story are fictional.

Catch up with Voldemort’s job interview in [Voldemort on Wall Street, Part 1] and his first week at the company in [Voldemort on Wall Street, Part 2.

Lord Voldemort received his invitation to the executive retreat at eight fifteen on Monday.

Two days. One vision. Unlimited possibilities.

He read it twice.

“Unlimited?” he asked.

Ethan looked over his shoulder.

“That usually means there’s a cash bar.”

The retreat would take place at a lakeside resort, where Blackthorn Capital’s executives planned to discuss growth, leadership, and the future of the company.

Voldemort intended to discuss ownership.

Following his successful board presentation, he had been invited onto the executive committee. This was progress, but insufficient progress. His new stock award was unvested, his authority was conditional, and Karen still had to approve his business cards.

She had rejected SUPREME LORD OF ALL DEPARTMENTS.

“Too much text,” she said.

He suspected ideology.

The Dark Lord Packs for Success

Ethan found him preparing three enchanted trunks.

“What’s in those?”

“Robes. Protective objects. Instruments of persuasion.”

“It’s one night.”

“I have been unprepared before.”

Ethan studied a silver goblet nestled inside black velvet.

“Is that another soul thing?”

“It is for wine.”

“Good.”

“It may also scream.”

“We’ll use the hotel glasses.”

Voldemort handed him a parchment.

“My proposal for the retreat.”

At the top, in elaborate script, were the words:

A PLAN FOR MY ASCENSION.

Ethan read the first paragraph.

“You want everyone to swear eternal allegiance?”

“Yes.”

“The resort checkout is at eleven.”

“Allegiance can continue after checkout.”

“And you want the board dissolved?”

“It has served its purpose.”

“Your shares haven’t vested.”

Voldemort stopped packing.

He had forgotten the electronic Horcrux.

After a moment, he crossed out DISSOLVE THE BOARD.

Beneath it, he wrote:

REVISIT IN FOUR YEARS.

Welcome to the Offsite

The resort gave every attendee a tote bag containing a water bottle, a notebook, and a polished stone engraved with BELIEVE.

Voldemort examined the stone.

“What does it do?”

“It reminds you to believe in yourself,” the receptionist said.

“I have never required assistance with that.”

He put it in his pocket anyway. An object small enough to conceal and useless enough to overlook had possibilities.

In the conference room, Brad was arranging name cards.

Despite the recent scrutiny of his expenses, he had volunteered to coordinate the retreat.

“I thought you were being investigated,” Voldemort said.

“Reviewed.”

“Is there a difference?”

“There is if you put it in writing.”

Brad handed him a badge.

TOM — TRANSFORMATION

“I requested ‘Lord Voldemort.’”

“We’re using first names to reduce hierarchy.”

Voldemort glanced at Brad’s badge.

BRAD — MANAGING DIRECTOR

“Yours has hierarchy.”

“Mine wouldn’t peel off.”

An Exercise in Vulnerability

Karen opened the first session.

“Today is about trust. We’d like everyone to share something the team doesn’t know about them.”

A finance director admitted he wrote poetry.

A board member admitted she disliked golf.

Brad admitted he sometimes cared too much.

Voldemort waited for someone to challenge this last statement.

Nobody did.

“Tom?” Karen said.

He considered his options.

There were murders, betrayals, and an unfortunate incident involving a bathroom.

“I once spent a considerable period living in a forest.”

“That must have been grounding.”

“I possessed small animals.”

Karen looked down at her workbook.

“What did the experience teach you?”

“Choose larger animals.”

Ethan wrote adaptability on the flip chart.

Karen nodded gratefully.

They moved on.

The Takeover Begins

The next exercise concerned decision-making.

On one wall, Karen hung a diagram showing the committees involved in approving a major initiative.

Voldemort approached it.

There was an executive committee, a growth committee, a transformation committee, a steering committee, and a working group that reported to two of the committees.

“This,” he said softly, “is magnificent.”

Priya, attending to represent operations, folded her arms.

“It took us six months to approve software.”

“Of course. You had to defeat five councils.”

“Or get five signatures.”

Voldemort traced the lines.

He had spent years attempting to seize institutions from the outside. Here was an institution offering him a map.

He turned to the room.

“I propose a single authority over all these bodies.”

Brad smiled.

“Interesting. Who?”

Voldemort gave him a look that had once cleared entire dining halls.

Brad stopped smiling.

Karen uncapped a marker.

“Let’s explore the proposal.”

For a glorious moment, Voldemort believed she had surrendered.

Then she wrote:

WHAT PROBLEM ARE WE SOLVING?

He stared at the question.

“My insufficient power.”

Ethan coughed.

“Slow approvals.”

Karen wrote SLOW APPROVALS.

“Good. What would success look like?”

“All shall—”

Ethan coughed again.

“Get decisions faster.”

Karen added a second line.

Voldemort watched his conquest become a project.

Brad Offers a Solution

Brad stood.

“The committees provide essential oversight. We don’t want to remove them just because there’s some friction.”

“How often do they meet?” Priya asked.

“Weekly.”

“What happens in those meetings?”

“We review progress.”

“Progress on what?”

“Items raised in the other meetings.”

Denise, invited because the resort’s presentation equipment was considered temperamental, looked up from her laptop.

“That explains the calendar.”

She turned her screen toward Ethan.

He studied it.

Then he projected it onto the wall.

There were overlapping invitations stretching across the workweek in dense blocks of purple.

Voldemort felt a brief, involuntary pang of admiration.

No chains. No locked doors. Yet practically every useful person had been immobilized.

“This working group meets on Tuesday,” Ethan said. “The steering committee meets Wednesday to review Tuesday. Then the executive committee meets Thursday to review Wednesday.”

“And Friday?” Voldemort asked.

“Preparation for Tuesday.”

Brad adjusted his badge.

“Alignment takes time.”

“So does the actual work,” Priya said.

Voldemort examined the invitations more closely.

Brad appeared as organizer on nearly all of them.

For the second time, the Dark Lord recognized a rival’s methods.

“You have built a prison,” he said.

Brad laughed.

“It’s a governance framework.”

“The inmates bring their own laptops.”

A Fall from Power

Karen called for a break.

Unfortunately, the break involved a trust exercise beside the lake.

Participants would stand on a low platform and fall backward into their colleagues’ arms.

Voldemort regarded the arrangement with disgust.

“Why would anyone voluntarily surrender control of their body?”

“To build trust,” Karen said.

“Has anyone considered competent hiring?”

Brad volunteered first.

He climbed onto the platform, spread his arms, and announced, “I know my team has my back.”

The team consisted of Priya, Ethan, Denise, and a finance director with a recently repaired shoulder.

“Wait,” Priya said.

Brad fell.

Voldemort lifted his wand.

Brad stopped in midair, horizontal, six inches above the grass.

Nobody spoke.

The finance director lowered his good arm.

“Thanks.”

Voldemort regarded the floating managing director.

He could leave him there.

The thought was soothing.

“Put me down,” Brad said.

“Submit a request.”

“Tom.”

“Someone must review it.”

Karen stepped forward.

“Lower him, please.”

Voldemort lowered him.

Gently.

This irritated him far more than dropping him would have.

Ethan approached as Brad brushed off his trousers.

“That was decent of you.”

“He has not completed his expense review.”

“Still.”

Voldemort pocketed his wand.

“Do not put this in the newsletter.”

The Committee to End Committees

Back inside, Karen asked each table to submit a practical recommendation.

Voldemort submitted his ascension parchment.

Ethan had made several amendments.

ETERNAL ALLEGIANCE had become CLEAR ACCOUNTABILITY.

ALL DECISIONS SHALL PASS THROUGH ME had become DECISIONS SHALL BE MADE BY THE PERSON RESPONSIBLE FOR THE WORK.

Voldemort pointed to the second change.

“This is the opposite of what I wrote.”

“It’s what got the software approved.”

“And this?”

NO RECURRING MEETING WITHOUT A SPECIFIC DECISION OR NECESSARY PURPOSE.

“That one’s yours,” Ethan said.

Voldemort considered it.

He had meant it as a threat against gatherings held without his permission.

Presented this way, it looked disturbingly useful.

Karen read the proposal aloud.

Priya supported it.

The finance director supported it.

A board member asked how much time it would save.

Ethan showed her.

Brad requested further discussion.

The board member looked at the projected calendar.

“I think we’ve had some.”

The motion passed.

Voldemort waited for a crown, a ceremonial key, or at least applause conducted on his instructions.

Instead, Karen handed him a list.

“You’ll oversee the review of recurring meetings.”

He looked down.

Eighty-six entries.

“I have conquered administration.”

“You’ve accepted an action item.”

He Who Must Not Be Invited

That evening, Voldemort sat alone on the resort terrace with his laptop.

Ethan had shown him how to cancel a recurring invitation.

The first had been a thirty-minute meeting to prepare for an hour-long meeting.

He canceled it.

A notification appeared.

Priya: Thank you.

He canceled another.

Denise: Finally.

He canceled a weekly update whose only agenda item was Updates.

Three employees sent him messages.

One included a small animated figure applauding.

Voldemort enlarged it suspiciously.

“Does this person owe me allegiance?” he asked Ethan, who had arrived with two coffees.

“No. You gave her Wednesday morning back.”

He canceled four more meetings.

The messages multiplied.

For years, Voldemort had attempted to inspire devotion through fear, ritual, and increasingly elaborate threats.

Apparently, he could also do it by deleting a nine a.m. meeting.

This was humiliating.

It was also efficient.

He began canceling faster.

At breakfast, Karen showed him an internal message.

Someone had given him a new nickname.

He Who Must Not Be Invited.

Voldemort read it in silence.

“Would you like me to address it?” she asked.

He considered the reverence hidden inside the joke.

“No.”

She handed him one final document.

“The board was impressed. They want you to present the results next month.”

He looked at the invitation attached to it.

RECURRING — MONTHLY — NO END DATE

Voldemort turned the laptop toward her.

“You have scheduled an eternal meeting.”

“It’s thirty minutes.”

“So was the first one.”

Karen waited.

He hovered over Decline.

For one beautiful second, he imagined doing it.

Then he remembered his unvested shares.

He clicked Accept.

Outside, the lake lay peaceful beneath the morning sun.

Inside, the Dark Lord opened a blank document.

At the top, he wrote:

A PLAN FOR MY ASCENSION.

Underneath, in smaller letters:

Subject to calendar availability.

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Excerpt: Fresh from his first week on Wall Street, Voldemort attends a corporate retreat with a secret takeover plan. Unfortunately, HR wants vulnerability, Brad wants more meetings, and eternal power requires calendar availability.

Pinterest title: Voldemort Goes on a Corporate Retreat—and Plots a Takeover

Pinterest description: The Dark Lord has survived HR and Excel. Now he faces trust falls, leadership exercises and an endless maze of corporate committees. Read Part 3 of the Voldemort on Wall Street parody series on Books of Brilliance.

Suggested image: An original humorous illustration of a sinister bald wizard in black robes at a lakeside corporate retreat, holding a laptop while executives gather near a trust-fall platform. Use a landscape image at least 1200 pixels wide.

Image alt text: A sinister wizard with a laptop watches executives at a lakeside corporate retreat.

Publishing and optimization notes

• Before the opening, add: “Catch up with Voldemort’s job interview in [Part 1 — insert published URL] and his first week at the company in [Part 2 — insert published URL].”
• Add a forward link to Part 3 from Part 2 after publication, using the actual published URL.
• Keep the unofficial-parody label visible. Use an accurate byline and Article or BlogPosting schema with actual publication and modification dates.
• Give each installment its own SEO focus: the interview for Part 1, the first week for Part 2, and the corporate retreat for Part 3.
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