The Butterfly Effect

Elf: Solo: A Harry Potter Story

The Dark Lord cursed at his pathetic excuse of a servant. Wormtail had, in his fear of the giant snake, accidentally messed up the potion he was ordered to make. Voldemort considered torturing his servant but decided against it only because tremoring hands would impair his already poor brewing even further.

"You meager excuse of a servant," Voldemort told him, "start the potion again and brew it perfectly this time or I will have Nagini kill you slowly."

Pettigrew quickly vanished the remains of his failed potion and began brewing it again immediately. With Barty Crouch Jr. out of the picture, Voldemort had no real followers to help him advance his plans. It was time, he decided, to take a calculated risk.

"Wormtail!"

"Yes master?" the rat-like man replied immediately, fear evident in his eyes.

"There has been a change of plans. I need you to visit Malfoy Manor, but you need to be very discreet. Let no one except Lucius see you. You are to tell him that his master requires his presence along with strength potions. Also tell him to bring his family books on the dark arts. Show him your arm as proof that I am back."

After saying that, Voldemort pressed his wand with the little strength he had left and created a dark mark tattoo on his servant's arm. "You are lucky Wormtail. You have received this mark without needing to go through initiation. Do not disappoint me now or it will be the last thing that you do. Now go!"

Wormtail quickly left the shed in the Romanian woods where they were staying. He sighed and wondered how he had gotten into such a huge mess. The Dark lord had not given him the Dark Mark as a reward. The tattoo assured he could not run away and live a pardoned life. He apparated away to the nearest port and sought a ferry to England where he would stow away as a rat.

SPACER

It had been 4 days since she had spilled her heart to Harry Potter. She had told him things she had never even told her sister and distinctly remembered the conversation.

"You alright? You seem lost in your thoughts. Need someone to talk to?" he had asked her.

Normally, she would have told him to shove it and go away. However, Daphne was so close to her breaking point that she spilled every detail to him. "I'm actually thinking about my parents. They're so infuriating but at the same time I know that being mad at them is unreasonable. Can you believe they are having a third child without ever consulting me, their eldest daughter?"

Harry looked at her but said nothing, thinking it wiser to let her continue her rant.

"And after all that my mom decides to practically adopt some American prodigy apparently without discussing it either. In fact, he will probably be joining us at Hogwarts soon! Can you believe it, an American at Hogwarts? That has never happened before, and of course I will have to take him under my wing since my parents will probably force me to. I never wanted any of this!"

After judging that she was done with her rant, Harry asked her quite simply, "Why does having him in your house bother you so much?"

As much as she had tried to answer that same question to herself, she was caught off guard by his question. She took a minute to think about it while Harry waited patiently. Finally, when she was growing desperate after not having an answer, she blurted out, "If I have a younger brother then I won't be head of the Greengrass family."

Had she put more conviction behind her words, he might have believed her. Had he believed her, he would have left her sitting there as she would give up the gift of family for money and power. Instead, he replied, "I have never had a family and I wish I could have siblings. You do not seem to be the type of person that would be ungrateful of that gift. I know just how important having a family can be and I know the yearning of wanting a sibling. There has to be a deeper reason and I suspect that you know it already."