Harry Potters Twin Book Four

The Death Eaters

Voldemort looked away from Harry and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cats, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness.

He was a monster.

He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression rapt and exultant. He took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight and was circling Harry again, hissing. Voldemort slipped one of those unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand. He caressed it gently too; and then he raised it, and pointed it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where Harry was tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying.

I gasped silently. I tried to find any remorse for thinking such cruel thoughts about Wormtail, about wishing him dead; but I couldn't. I didn't care that he was being kicked around like a dog, he deserved every stab of pain he got.

Voldemort turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.

Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.

"My Lord…" he choked, "my Lord… you promised… you did promise…"

"Hold out your arm," said Voldemort lazily.

"Oh Master… thank you, Master…"

Did he actually believe Voldemort would heal his hand so quickly? No, he would want to watch him suffer for as long as possible. I was disgusted that I felt the same way, that I agreed with Voldemort with this; let Wormtail suffer.

Wormtail extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again.

"The other arm, Wormtail."

"Master, please… please…"

Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and I saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth - the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup: the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.

"It is back," he said softly, "they will all have noticed it… and now, we shall see… now we shall know…"

He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm.

The scar on my forehead seared with a sharp pain again, and Wormtail let out a fresh howl; Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's mark, and I saw that it had turned jet black.

A look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"

He began to pace up and down before Harry and Wormtail, eyes sweeping the graveyard all the while. After a minute or so, he looked down at Harry again, a cruel smile twisting his snakelike face.

"I know your sister is here, Harry Potter, so do not think me a fool," he hissed, a shiver ran down my spine. "So tell me where she is hiding?"

Harry stayed silent, like both Voldemort and I obviously expected. Harry stared bravely back into Voldemorts eyes, though he looked as though he wanted to look away, to disapear.