ꜱᴇʀᴘᴇɴᴛɪɴᴇ ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ | ᴛᴏᴍɪᴏɴᴇ

Serpentine, ch. 31

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When Harmony woke, the sun was setting outside the bedroom window. She sat up and clutched her sore head. I must have been out for a couple of hours, she thought.

She padded over to the window to look outside. Her improved vision and hearing had neutralized some, but she still felt like she could duel a hundred Death Eaters. As she looked over the grounds of Riddle mansion, Harmony spied a small group of cloaked figures striding toward the front door.

As they came inside, Harmony realized that she could hear quite a few voices already downstairs. She fastened her scarf tighter around her face and went to peer out the bedroom door. Looking beyond the staircase banister, Harmony saw that the mansion was full of people. She would have thought it was a party if everyone wasn't rushing to and fro with anxious voices.

She recognized a few people who passed, like Barty, Goyle, Bellatrix, and Darius. Most of the others she'd never seen before.

She didn't see Voldemort until he came bounding up the stairs to her. Several of the Death Eaters watched him, and caught sight of Harmony. They pointed her out to fellow followers, speaking in curious whispers.

"Good, you're awake," Master said as he reached the door.

Harmony backed up to let him into the room, and when he closed the door behind him he took her by surprise by wrapping his arms around her in a tight embrace.

"Tonight's the night, Harmony," Voldemort told her with his usually somber voice tinged in excitement. "Lucius has sent word. Every minute, more of my followers arrive."

Harmony found his excitement contagious, and with her head fitted right under Master's chin, she wrapped her arms around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

"Tonight we make history," he said as he pulled away slightly to look at her with bright blue eyes. "Tonight, everything is going to change."

"So suddenly?" Harmony asked quietly.

"Our trip to the Ministry has to be quick and clean. The less who see us, the better. We'll have more time to act once we arrive."

"Arrive where?" asked Harmony earnestly.

Master smiled slowly down at her.

She tilted her head. "Don't you trust me?"

"You have my Serpentine charm, the only one ever created," he reminded her. "Of course I trust you."

Harmony gazed up at him expectantly.

Master regarded her for a moment before he said, "You have changed so much since you first came here."

"So have you," she pointed out.

Voldemort's smile fell, and he released her from his arms. He went over to the window and rested his hands on the sill. Harmony saw a few twinkles in the sky from the first stars of the night. Master remained silent for quite some time, and Harmony wasn't sure if she had angered him.

"I suppose the best place to start is always at the beginning," he said as he stared out into the night. "Seventeen years ago, I went to recruit a magically gifted couple. The woman was Muggle-born, but I was willing to look past that because of her especially powerful abilities. James and Lily were their names—and they had a son."

"Harry Potter," Harmony said softly. The sound of her best friend's name was strange coming from her mouth, because she had refrained from saying it ever since coming to the mansion.

"I have never been so confounded as to how a small boy could have ruined me. It made no sense," said Master as he curled his hands into angry fists. "You have no idea how terrible death is until it is staring you in the face. But I've been able to come back to life again and again to finish him, yet the boy is too damned lucky for his own good. He was always able to escape somehow. He has always been in the way of me becoming greater and more powerful. Potter is merely an obstacle that needs to be eliminated." Voldemort turned around to look at her as he said, "This all started seventeen years ago, and tonight I intend to finish what I have started."