Deliver for the death eaters

Chapter 16

Avery Senior had been absolutely correct in his observation that the adults had lost their children to the new music that had been sent to Rabastan the day before. Draco, Pansy, Theo, Daphne, Millicent, Blaise, Vincent and Gregory were all sitting at the breakfast table the next morning, headphones on with their noses in books and magazines, barely paying attention to what was going on around them. Perhaps it was rather fortuitous that they were so distracted because the atmosphere around the breakfast table was palpable to say the least.

For once, the tension that hung around the majority of the Inner Circle had nothing to do with the still present fear of the glowing shapes stuck to the ceilings of the Death Eaters or they feared another prank in the night by the young werewolves from Greyback's pack, or even due to the fact that some of them had been forced on impromptu raids during the course of the night by an ever increasingly frustrated Voldemort. Nope, the Inner Circle were set to have a full on fight, Muggle style, because of something that had happened the night before.

Game night.

Predictably, not many of the Inner Circle had heeded Severus Snape's warning about the games that had been sent to Mr. Mupples – that some of them had been banned in households, including the Royal Family, because they had the propensity of causing some very vicious family divides. Well, after witnessing the game of Scrabble between Bellatrix, Mr. Mupples and some of the young werewolves, an assumption had gone around the Dark wizards that the other games were actually more tamer than they were, like Scrabble was. The argument between Bellatrix, Hannah and a young werewolf called Sebastian about whether 'Bumbershoot' was actually a word or not had been one of the worst things to happen during the game, aside from the debate between another of the werewolves and Mr. Mupples about using languages other than English. For some reason, the Death Eaters thought that because these arguments were tame, the hype around the games being problematic was exaggerated.

That was until Snape decided to drive the point home and got Macnair, Yaxley, Rookwood, Amycus, Alecto and Travers to play a game of Monopoly. Things spiralled quite quickly but the madness reached a zenith when Macnair landed on Marvin Gardens, which would have given Alecto a belated monopoly, and he utterly refused to listen to her bids for it and was completely content with bleeding her – and the others – dry with his glittering hotel on Park Place and barely landed on any of the damn tax slots.

It was no secret that the Carrows and Yaxley did possess a bit of a temper, but even Rookwood and Travers, both of whom had tempers that were relatively mild amongst the Death Eaters, soon turned incredibly murderous and had they not been causing such a noise that made Voldemort stomp downstairs to break up the screaming match that was happening, someone would have likely ended up with a missing eye.

From that moment on, Monopoly was banned unless Voldemort had the inclination to supervise to make sure that his Death Eaters behaved themselves.

After Macnair, Yaxley, Rookwood, Amycus, Alecto and Travers had a moment to calm down, Snape, on the advice of some of the younger werewolves, had risked the ire of the Dark Lord by proving his point a second time; this time, he pitted Reed, Bellatrix and Mr. Mupples, Avery Senior, Crystal Holland and Narcissa against each other in a game of Risk.

It had ended rather predictably: with Bellatrix and Mr. Mupples systematically taking over the world while the two of them savoured the salty tears from Reed, Avery Senior and the young werewolf, and the banshee screaming and swearing of Narcissa. On one hand it had been amusing to witness Bellatrix and her plushie trounce their opponents but on the other hand, even Voldemort found their ruthlessness in a game just a teeny, tiny bit worrying.

It was quickly decided that Risk was to be avoided around Bellatrix and Mr. Mupples at all costs.

Unfortunately, Voldemort had expected the salt to be slept off – it hadn't. Alecto, Yaxley, Rookwood, Amycus and Travers still looked set to rip Macnair's legs and arms off, and Reed, Avery Senior and Narcissa were still giving an oblivious and happy Bellatrix the stink eye while Crystal Holland absolutely refused to look in the direction of Voldemort's favourite lieutenant. The others who had been wise enough not to participate in the games or had not witnessed what had happened the evening before were sitting on tenterhooks the entire time.