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DECEMBER 26th, 1996
The Dark Lord has been traipsing the country, but I asked to stay at the Zabini manor for the remainder of my holidays to avoid the Death Eaters sullying my carpeted floors.
But the Dark Lord is back, and he wants to see his two prodigies before the end of the year.
And it reminds me far too much of the last time it was just Celeste and I alone with him in a room. The time I forced her onto her knees and violated her mind, all while he egged me on. We stand in the room we trained in over the summer, Celeste near the window and I several feet away from her near the wall. He's not looking at us. He's watching his snake, the smaller cousin of a serpent, slither across the floor and over his bare feet. Nagini hisses, a soft rattle that sends chills up my spine, and it doesn't help how cold the manor gets in the winter.
"Have you been enjoying your break?"
His voice is cold, thin, a slab of ice that could pierce skin just as easily as it could shatter. It makes my stomach twist, and I look away as my mind flashes with the memory of what happened the last time he caught me alone.
"A needed respite from your task, has it been?"
Celeste shifts from her position near the window. I glance at her, watching as she pulls her thick cardigan tighter around herself. Her lower lip is trembling.
"I expect you'll be on the train back to Hogwarts by the end of the week."
He looks up, beady red eyes boring specifically into mine. I freeze at the sight of his face, his hood falling back to fully reveal it. Pale, sickly skin, green and purple veins like bruises crawling the top and sides of his scalp, that mutilated nose with scar tissue going deep within, and the cruel smile on thin lips. He's tall and towering even from a distance, a crooked hand holding his crooked wand at his side.
The throbbing pain leading from the Mark on my forearm, up my shoulder, up the back of my neck, and in my head intensifies with his each and every murmured word. That piece of him—piece of his magic, piece of his mind—that he left behind in me the day he tortured me in my own cellar seems to recognize him, and it's screaming inside me, scratching its nails down the insides of my veins and destroying my cells.
"Yes, my lord," Celeste says in a low voice, and his eyes snap to her.
"Celeste," he says in a light voice, his arms spreading slightly while his thin smile curves higher. "Tell me, how has your task been progressing?"
