"...After Bryan Watson pushed through the founding of the Joint Task Forces, that plan we discussed—Adam, go and see to it."
Voldemort said it softly, almost as an afterthought.
"The prisoners at Erkstag are yours to command. I want you to give Watson a lesson he won't forget."
"I will spare no effort, and do my utmost not to disappoint you, my honoured Dark Lord!"
Adam trembled faintly as he spoke, a flush of excitement was rising red in his eyes.
That plan—
Down both sides of the long table, more than a few Death Eaters wore looks of keen, concealed interest, leaning slightly forward in their seats.
Severus and Lucius, in the exact same instant, felt a flicker of wariness rise in them both.
It seemed the Dark Lord meant to do something considerable about Bryan Watson's rising aggression—but he had no intention, apparently, of bringing the Death Eaters into the plan at all. He meant to use the prisoners of Erkstag instead.
Why was that?
Did Voldemort believe there was a traitor somewhere among the Death Eaters tonight? Or did he simply think that they—most of them purebloods drawn from Britain's oldest and proudest families—lacked the guts to truly offend a man like Watson?
Or perhaps the task itself carried too much risk, and the Dark Lord was, for once, unwilling to spend Death Eaters whose loyalty ran deeper, whose loss might cost him something he couldn't easily replace?
Both Lucius and Severus turned these questions over privately in their minds, weighing each possibility against the last, but neither man let so much as a glimmer of the calculation show on his face. Their expressions remained perfectly composed, and still.
The tasks Voldemort gave his Death Eaters were always kept scrupulously separate from one another—and it was an unspoken but absolute rule that none of them pried into another's assignment.
To do otherwise would draw Voldemort's suspicion.
"My Lord, I too wish to deal with Watson on your behalf!"
Bellatrix raised a hand sharply, gazing up the length of the table at Voldemort with feverish, glittering eyes, her whole body angled toward him.
"You too wish to deal with Watson for me."
Voldemort echoed her words back exactly, tilting his head slightly to one side as he studied her.
"Coming from your mouth, Bellatrix, that means a great deal indeed."
Black-haired, heavy-lidded Bellatrix flushed scarlet at once from throat to hairline, her eyes were brimming instantly with tears of joy at the 'praise'.
"But I fear you haven't the time for it, Bellatrix. Your... your family, I hear, may soon be occupied with a happy occasion..."
There was mockery threaded unmistakably through Voldemort's voice now.
Bellatrix stared at him blankly for a moment, her lips were parting slightly, as though she'd lost the thread of his meaning somewhere.
"I don't understand what you mean, my Lord."
"I mean your niece, Bellatrix. Yours as well, Lucius, Narcissa." He let their names fall one after another, watching each face flinch in turn. "I've had word—she means to marry the werewolf, Remus Lupin. I imagine the three of you must be very proud."
Laughter erupted around the table instantly in unison breaking the earlier tension.
Many of the Death Eaters leaned forward eagerly, trading delighted glances back and forth, and several even pounded the table with fists in glee—the humiliation of Bellatrix and the Malfoys made for fine entertainment.
"My Lord, she is no niece of ours!"
Bellatrix shouted the words out over the rising uproar of laughter, her face was blotching red and white in rapid, furious patches.
"Ever since our sister married that Mudblood, Narcissa and I have never once looked at her with anything but contempt. That child, and the beast she's chosen to marry—neither of them has anything to do with us!"
Narcissa and Lucius said nothing at all in their own defence throughout the exchange, but they too kept their heads lowered, their faces appeared marked with genuine shame.
"Enough."
Voldemort said simply, one hand still stroking across Nagini's head.
"Enough."
The laughter died instantly, cut off mid-breath, as though a switch had been thrown somewhere in the room.
"For too long now, many of our oldest families have grown somewhat diseased."
He looked around at all of them in turn, paying no mind at all to Bellatrix's pleading gaze.
"You must prune the branches to keep the tree healthy—mustn't you? Cut away whatever threatens the health of the whole."
"Yes, my Lord!"
Bellatrix said in a small voice, her eyes were brimming once more with grateful tears.
"Only give me the chance!"
"The chance..."
Voldemort smiled, cold as ice forming over water.
"Chances aren't simply waited for, Bellatrix. Now is precisely the moment to cut away the rot that festers in us."
Expressions of Understanding appeared on the Death Eaters' faces at that, one by one down the table, but the mood accompanying it no longer carried the same delight it had a moment ago, when they'd merely been mocking Bellatrix.
This was a task with real risk attached.
They hadn't forgotten: Remus Lupin had long been one of Bryan Watson's most devoted and visible supporters. Watson had even placed a workshop worth millions of Galleons for the Learning Machines wholly and publicly in Lupin's hands.
At the same time, Watson had recommended Lupin for a seat as an advisor to the Ministry of Magic itself—no small thing, for a werewolf, in this day and age.
Watson would certainly attend the wedding.
"I would be glad to do it, my Lord!"
Bellatrix declared, her voice thick and trembling with emotion now,
"I swear to you, I will grind those filthy beasts to dust—every last one of them, I swear it on my own life!"
"Let us hope so, Bellatrix—"
Voldemort gave a lazy nod.
Something stirred faintly in Severus's chest at the exchange. He caught the flicker of a dim light pass through Voldemort's red eyes and vanish again just as quickly.
'This matter... it would not be so simple.'
"You will take part in this task as well, my dear Miss Cliodna—"
For the first time since the feast had begun, Voldemort turned the weight of his gaze toward Cliodna.
The faint stir of noise in the hall stopped at once. The Death Eaters eyed the wooden-faced Cliodna with caution now, several of them were shifting their weight subtly away from her, as though her presence carried some risk of contamination.
This woman held a peculiar standing among them.
She was not a witch bound to the Dark Lord by loyalty in the way they were—she was closer to something like his collaborator instead.
Her very presence, without a single word spoken in the matter, only threw Voldemort's power into sharper relief by comparison.
At the Quidditch World Cup final, it was she who had forced Bryan Watson to reveal, for the first time before the eyes of the entire watching world, that matchless, terrifying strength of his.
And yet a witch such as this—capable of that, standing at that level—had had no choice but to accept the Dark Lord's imprisonment regardless.
"If you mean for me to occupy one of them—Watson or Dumbledore—"
Cliodna's brow furrowed slightly.
"That isn't my plan, Cliodna."
Voldemort said. Coiled across her lap, Nagini slowly lifted her head at the sound of her master's shifting tone, swaying her upper body faintly from side to side, her cold serpent's eyes were radiating a deathly chill at Cliodna.
Should Cliodna so much as breathe half a syllable of refusal here, at this table, in front of everyone, those sharp venomous fangs would tear open her throat in an instant.
A glint of light stirred, briefly, in Cliodna's eyes.
Not because of Nagini's restless hunger toward her—but because of the man seated diagonally across from her: Severus Snape, his face was utterly without expression.
"Fine."
After a brief moment's thought, Cliodna nodded. With an air of indifference, she asked, "What exactly is your plan?"
"Oh, ha—a plan—"
Cliodna's willingness to cooperate lifted Voldemort's mood somewhat, but under the weight of her question, and the curious, hungry stares of so many Death Eaters now fixed on the exchange, he only smiled smoothly, giving nothing away.
"What an absurd question—do you truly believe that to deal with one contemptible young wolf, Voldemort himself needs to sit down and painstakingly draw up a plan?"
Cliodna fell silent at that, letting the deflection stay unanswered.
In the primeval forests of Albania, she had spent a considerable stretch of time at Voldemort's side, in circumstances few people now living had ever witnessed. She knew perfectly well exactly what manner of dark wizard he truly was, beneath the theatre of it.
Voldemort was never a man without designs of his own, whatever face he presented—he was not the sort of wizard to wreck a wedding and kill Remus Lupin simply for the pleasure of it, however much pleasure he might also take along the way.
Everything he did served something larger, always.
"Well, then, I think—"
Voldemort's gaze drifted away from Cliodna's face at last, settling instead across the length of his gathered Death Eaters.
"This delightful little family gathering ought to—"
"Wait."
Cliodna, who had fallen silent moments before and seemed to have nothing further to say, suddenly cut across Voldemort's words.
Fury surged at once, violently, in Voldemort's red eyes at the interruption, and the Death Eaters all turned to stare at Cliodna in the same instant—some in open horror at her nerve, some in pure fury on the Dark Lord's behalf.
"How dare you interrupt the Master, you—!"
Bellatrix flew into a rage at once, drawing her wand in a single sharp motion and levelling it straight at Cliodna, looking ready to avenge the 'insult' on Voldemort's behalf.
"Silence, Bella!"
Voldemort's voice rose sharply. Having barked Bellatrix back into her seat with that single command, he turned his attention back to Cliodna, his tone all courtesy now—yet his eyes remained cold enough to freeze a soul solid where it stood.
"Do you have some instruction for Voldemort, my dear Cliodna?"
"This place—"
Cliodna turned her head slightly, gesturing with her eyes alone toward the tall window along the far wall.
"We cannot go on staying here."
What did she mean by that?
Confusion showed openly now on the faces of many Death Eaters seated around the table.
Had the woman simply been confined too long in one place, and merely wanted out to stretch her legs?
Something flickered across Lucius's and Narcissa's expressions at the remark, both of them were looking toward Cliodna with the sudden, fragile flicker of hope.
"You understand what I mean—"
Under the weight of so many eyes now fixed on her, Cliodna's expression did not shift. She said to Voldemort, in a voice calm and entirely flat,
"We have to move out of here. Otherwise, everyone will die."
————————————
For More Chapters; [email protected]/FicFrenzy