'Move out of Malfoy Manor. Otherwise, everyone will die.'
The banquet had ended, and the dining hall's hard-won, brittle ease of atmosphere instantly turned heavy again.
The Death Eaters—even Adam Vogel, who as a rule cared only for stirring up greater chaos wherever he found it—all turned their attention toward Cliodna now.
Voldemort's gaze locked with Cliodna's across the table, and for a moment neither of them spoke.
"Is that so."
At length, Voldemort's pale hand resumed its slow stroking of Nagini's head, as though nothing at all had just been said.
He tilted his head slightly to one side, looking toward Lucius and Narcissa, whose eyes had both gone wide, and the corner of his mouth began curling into a mocking arc.
"I've noticed you and your family haven't been very happy lately, Malfoy. Did you go and find someone to plead your case for you, then—so that I would move out of your precious home?"
"Absolutely not, my Lord!"
Sweat the size of pea pods slid down the side of Lucius's face. He scrambled to his feet in a full panic.
"I swear it, my Lord. We—we absolutely did not. What I mean is, it is the greatest honour of our lives that you're willing to stay in our home. There is nothing in this world that could make us happier, nothing—"
Lucius swore up and down, tumbling the words over one another, that he and his wife had absolutely not, commissioned Miss Cliodna to probe the matter on their behalf, obliquely or otherwise.
"You know exactly what I'm referring to—"
Cliodna blinked once, slow and weary.
Voldemort's manner, the theatre of it, had already said everything.
In truth, it wasn't that she felt any real pity for the lives of the wizards gathered in this manor tonight—as far as she was concerned, the only creature that came and went from this place worth saving was, perhaps, the house-elf who brought her meals every day.
Everyone else here was steeped in grievous sin, layered deep, herself very much included.
By the simple weight of their crimes, every one of them deserved to die.
Nor was she unaware of the attitude Voldemort was likely to take toward what she was about to say; after all, this was not the first time the subject had come up between the two of them.
But after careful thought, she raised it again all the same. For the sake of the countless innocent lives that existed beyond this manor's walls.
The Twin Serpent Staff was drawing in life force.
It would grow more and more active with time, she knew, until, left uncontrolled, it might turn the entire world into a dead land—a wasteland as thoroughly and permanently emptied of life as the island of Avalon.
Voldemort had neither the ability nor the standing to master the Twin Serpent Staff—otherwise, he would have already used it against Bryan and Dumbledore, and this entire war would already be over.
"Well then, what would you have me do, Miss Cliodna?"
Voldemort didn't fly into a rage at once, as several at the table had clearly braced for. He smiled coldly instead, his tone was intentionally offhand, almost bored.
In that instant, many thoughts flickered rapidly through Cliodna's mind, one after another. Her brow furrowed, and she cast a glance toward Severus—brief, almost careless, as though without meaning to—a glance he, of course, did not fail to notice.
"If you truly seek my counsel—"
Cliodna seemed entirely unaware of the murderous aura already needling at her back from half the table. Her face had set into something cold and level, unbothered.
"Then take it somewhere polar. Somewhere it cannot reach any form of life. Perhaps only then can this world be spared its ravages."
The Dark Lord and Cliodna were discussing something of tremendous importance here—a secret shared between the two of them alone, and neither one seemed inclined to let the rest of the room glimpse what that secret actually was.
The Death Eaters, including the coldly composed Severus, all sensed as much. And that glance she'd just cast toward him a moment ago—
Severus watched the woman across the table without appearing to watch her at all, his thoughts roiling beneath a face that gave away nothing.
This woman knew Bryan Watson. Had known him, in fact, since before he'd ever appeared before the wider world at all—since before the name Bryan Watson had meant anything to anyone.
Bryan had offered an explanation for the connection once, in passing—he'd said he'd always meant to bring her to justice eventually, that this was simply unfinished business finally catching up.
To the rest of the world, that explanation was sufficient enough to close the question. But to Severus, who knew Bryan rather better than most people alive, it was clearly nonsense.
Something far more complicated must have passed between the two of them at some point—some unsettled grudge, some history. Affection seemed unlikely, given everything he'd observed. But hatred didn't quite fit the shape of it either.
What, then, was she actually trying to tell him, with that glance?
A thread of unease began to rise within the otherwise expressionless Severus, working its way up from somewhere in his chest.
This woman was, after all, currently held captive by the Dark Lord here at Malfoy Manor. And the Dark Lord had been watching her closely all along.
If Severus failed now to grasp the meaning hidden inside that glance of hers, he understood that he might never get another chance to ask her directly.
"Laughable—"
said Voldemort, the single word was dropped like something distasteful he wished to be rid of,
"It chose to submit to me, did it not? What further discussion is there to have."
Within her sleeve, out of sight beneath the table, Cliodna's hidden fist tightened slowly, knuckle by knuckle.
Even now, turning it over yet again in her mind, she still couldn't fully make sense of it herself.
The High Priestess had prophesied that Bryan Watson could retrieve the Twin Serpent Staff for her, and indeed, reality had borne that prophecy out exactly as spoken.
But by normal logic—even if her own strength was proven too weak to earn the Staff's recognition, Bryan Watson himself ought, by every reasonable measure, to have had the standing to wield it in her place.
After all, he was the one the prophecy had named. He was the one chosen.
And yet the result, when it actually came, had been that the moment Bryan helped the Twin Serpent Staff break its ancient seal, the Staff had cast him aside at once.
As for herself, she had been nothing more than a conduit in the whole affair—a vessel to carry the Staff from one place to another, and no more than that.
It was the Staff's own will, not hers, that had instructed her to hand it over to Voldemort. And once she had done so, the Staff had never again allowed her to so much as touch it.
The only one who could truly command it, it seemed was Voldemort.
Cliodna, who had let her gaze fall to the table for some stretch of time now, lost in these thoughts, finally lifted her eyes again. She shook her head faintly and as her gaze wavered in doing so, it passed once more briefly across Severus's hollow, pitch-black eyes before settling, steady on Voldemort's face.
"It did indeed choose you, Lord Voldemort—"
Cliodna said softly,
"But it has not submitted to you. A thing like that would never submit to a mere mortal—"
When she cast that second glance his way, brief as the first, Severus knew simultaneously that this was no illusion of his own making.
But what, precisely, was it she was trying to convey to him with it—'no! Wait.'
A thought exploded in his mind all at once, one that very nearly cost Severus his grip on his own extinguished, unreadable gaze.
Cliodna had no connection to him at all—unless one counted the handful of brief, professional exchanges they'd shared at Hogwarts, back when she'd taught Defence Against the Dark Arts under the guise of Mad-Eye Moody.
She wasn't trying to convey anything to him at all. She was trying to use him as a channel—to pass a message to Bryan.
The instant it clicked into place, Severus's dark eyes flashed with sudden, sharp understanding. He rose to his feet instantly, the wand already in his hand snapping up and around to point straight at Cliodna.
"Sectumsempra!"
A blur of jagged, ethereal light flickered through the dim air, tearing forward, and the cleaved air itself let out a piercing, inhuman shriek in its wake, as though the room had been wounded along with whoever the curse found.
His sudden, violent attack stunned everyone, including Voldemort who had been on the verge of fury at Cliodna's words. Only one person present was the exception to that shock.
Cliodna's reaction came swift, near-instantaneously. Facing the curse-light that would, in another instant, have torn her limb from limb, she raised a finger and a spark of green starlight bloomed at its tip!
From within that green glow, an ancient vine as thick as a grown man's wrist shot forth at tremendous speed, meeting the flickering curse-light head-on in the air above the table!
Crack—crack—crack!
Beneath the sharp, invisible blade-shadow of Sectumsempra, the ancient vine shattered inch by inch, splinters began flying in every direction—but from the bright green light still glowing at Cliodna's fingertip, more vines poured forth without end and in the end, together, they dissolved the strike, swallowing the last of its light.
The wood splinters that scattered loose across the room rained down afterward, crackling faintly over both Severus and Adam in turn, and even struck Voldemort himself in the spray—though the fragments flying toward Voldemort, once they drew near enough to him, seemed to corrode away on their own, turning into thin wisps of black smoke that dispersed silently into the air.
"How dare she insult you, my Lord!"
Severus roared in fury,
"How dare she say the greatest wizard in history is nothing but a mere mortal! My Lord, I will teach her a lesson today, without fail—I swear it!"
"Well said, Severus. I think rather more of you now!"
Bellatrix drew her own wand as well at the encouragement, her face was twisting into a wide, eager snarl as she levelled it at Cliodna, clearly about to strike her own blow before anyone could stop her.
With the atmosphere whipped up this far, this fast, the Death Eaters—each one eager to prove their own loyalty following Severus's example, not wanting to be the one caught sitting still while others acted—drew their wands out one after another down both sides of the table.
"Enough!"
Voldemort's icy shout cut clean through the noise, turning the seething, half-risen Death Eaters to stone where they stood.
He looked over the faces of those ready to defend his authority, one by one, and at last let his gaze settle on Severus's face, where the anger still lingered visibly, looking genuinely unsettled.
"I gave you no order, Severus—"
Voldemort said, his tone was lazy, almost gentle.
"I cannot allow it, my Lord—"
Severus's thin lips moved.
"No one is permitted to offend your dignity in front of me."
"Oh, I'm gratified—truly. Severus, and all my Death Eaters gathered here tonight, remain loyal. But Miss Cliodna happens to enjoy certain privileges—"
Voldemort slowly turned his head to look at Cliodna, her face was tight and pale now under the combined aim of so many wands hovering in her direction, and let out a soft, deeply satisfied laugh, a gleam of triumph began to flicker in his red serpent's eyes.
"Lower your wands, my Death Eaters. I believe Miss Cliodna now understands that one must remain respectful in Lord Voldemort's presence."
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