An Enemy

Chapter Six- Return to the Shack

I didn’t sleep well that night, the niggling ache of hunger in my stomach kept waking me just as I nodded off, I also couldn’t shake the lonely pang that hung over me as I listened to Pansy and Sarah snoring.

My head began to feel heavy and I finally drifted into sleep, noting just before I did, the paler shade of green the light had turned.

I was in the forest, the dead and dank and depressing one that I had seen months ago, the night that Sthyss had died. I’d had this dream before.

Wormtail was there, his head sunk between his shoulder, and his eyes ferreting about wildly, looking around as he tried to see in the dark light. My eyes were adjusted though and I could see shrunken, deformed body resting in a small, mossy alcove by a tree. Its body was wrapped in what appeared to be an old and dirty, brown robe.

Shivering, I neared the body and inspected it closely in morbid fascination, wondering just exactly what Voldemort had become, also taking advantage that this was a memory- and that he therefore couldn’t see me.

As before, he was the size of a small child, grotesquely diseased and disfigured; I turned away in disgust.

It was as I turned that I became aware of the woman kneeling between Wormtail and myself and Voldemort.

“Bertha.” Voldemort’s voice was little more than a whisper, and yet it was the loudest thing I’d ever heard in the world.

“P…p…please…” the dark-haired woman whimpered, her body looked filthy, as if she had crawled through the mud, the hem of her dress was torn.

“Tell me Bertha, what it is that you know, and I will let you go.” He reasoned, the hair on my arms standing on end as the woman hesitated a moment and her body suddenly stiffened like a board, before an ear splitting scream tore through the air. Bertha had never been named when I’d had the dream before.

What had changed?

“P…p…please, I don’t-”

Again she screamed, my body felt tense and a dark energy seemed to roil like mist as the woman continued to writhe on the forest floor, now silently rocking and convulsing, as the pain became too much to vocalise.

“My patience is wearing thin.” Voldemort stated unemotionally, sounding bored as the Cruciatus Curse ceased.

Bertha had seemed to have lost all ability to speak and it frightened me that Voldemort was so strong even though his body was so destroyed.

“Master, perh-” Wormtail started, his was frightened.

“-Silence!” Voldemort barked, it was a painful sound and I jumped at his sudden ferocity.

I woke with a start, my head lifting off my pillow, the sound of my bed creaking making me even more alert as I mistook it for another person’s movement.

My heart was pounding in my chest and I took a deep breath in an attempt to steady its rapid tattoo.

The rest of Slytherin house would undoubtedly hear (if they hadn’t already) about how I had stood up for Harry against Draco. With that in mind, and the clock on the wall indicating the time of five o’clock, I thought it probably not a bad time to get ready for the day.

Unsurprisingly the image of the woman, Bertha, being tortured stuck with me for the next few days, seemingly caught in the forefront of my mind. It wasn’t until Thursday that I managed to shake the dream’s memory and my mind was taken from it.

I had just finished my last lesson of the day- Herbology and I was walking back up from the Greenhouses towards the castle, when I spotted movement in the grass heading towards me. I quickly diverted myself from the path and headed for the unmistakable sight of dark scales in the long grass.