- Text Size +
Dinner Malfoy Manor


A black stone ring was upon Voldemort’s hand. Severus could hardly keep his eyes off it as the Dark Lord moved his goblet to his mouth at the head of the long dinner table at the Malfoy’s manor. Severus sat toward the end of the row, quietly taking everything in, his mother beside him, staring at Voldemort in the same rapt adoration as beheld the face of Bellatrix Lestrange across the way. Eileen Prince owed Voldemort everything.

Severus ate slowly. The food served at Malfoy manor was rich and thick and heavier even than the food at Hogwarts, and it often made Severus’s stomach ache. Even after a month of eating the delicacies that the Malfoy’s considered mundane, he was still not used to it. He pushed a bite of the greasy duck around his plate with his fork.

Voldemort’s ring flashed again as he moved his hands, making Severus’s eyes dart back up to him, rather than his food. A wicked grin had crossed the cold, dark-featured face as he had peered about the others at the table. “My friends,” the Dark Lord cooed, reaching out a hand to touch the giant snake that had coiled and twisted her way onto his shoulders, like a great slithering mantel. “I am most pleased to share such a marvelous fare as this with all of you. Thank you, again, Abraxus, for hosting.”

They had supped with the Death Eaters at the Malfoy’s several times since Severus had been living there, but Abraxus Malfoy had never once seen put out. Quite the opposite, the look of pleasure on his face from being recognized by the Dark Lord was most complete. “Yes, my Lord,” he breathed, “Any time at all, my Lord.”

Voldemort stood then, the snake staying on his shoulders, draping across him, hissing, her tongue flickering like a flame from her scaley mouth. The chair he’d been in scraped across the floor, and he started to walk slowly around the table, gently laying his hands on the shoulders of each person he passed, as though he were counting them or claiming them for his own. “The Ministry of Magic has begun a campaign,” he said, “As many of you know -- thanks to the owls they sent out this morning.” He withdrew a pamphlet from his robes and waved it about. Snickers rose from some of the Death Eaters. Voldemort threw the pamphlet onto the table and it slid along the silk tablecloth until it had come to rest a few inches from Severus’s plate. “This propaganda is being headed by none other than the current headmaster of Hogwarts - Albus Dumbledore, the old fool who is responsible for shaping the minds of wizarding children.” He sneered at the pamphlet as he rounded the end of the table, his fingers lingering over Severus’s shoulders, as though to draw their attention to him - one of the wizarding children in question - before moving on.

Severus’s eyes moved to the pamphlet. It was gold and purple and said The Muggle Liaison Coalition on the top. Beneath the headline was an illustration of a wizard hugging a Muggle family, a look of benign happiness on the muggle faces.

“This literature,” Voldemort said thickly, “Claims that muggles are to be treated no differently than wizards. We are to be obligated to protect muggles. Mudbloods should be given the same rights and allowances as we are.”

“Rubbish,” laughed Orion Black, his thick mustache wobbling beneath his nose, a bit too much mead in his blood to keep the word from blurring around the edges. “Absolute filth.” Walburga Black lay a hand across his wrist to still him.

Voldemort placed his hands on Bellatrix Lestrange’s shoulders. She grinned and melted into him like butter that had been placed too close to the stove, a look of rapture playing in her features. Her husband, Rudolphus, glanced out of the corner of his eyes with a mild expression of jealousy. His wife had never looked quite like that at his touch. “The blood traitors cannot be allowed to continue on spreading their lies to the wizarding community as they have done,” Voldemort said, voice so slick his voice was nearly a whisper. They need to be stopped.” His hands slipped away from Bellatrix as he moved on and her full lips drooped into an almost comical pout.

“We must show the ministry that we do not agree with this latest coalition they have formed,” Voldemort said. “We must demonstrate that we do not condone the removal of our rights as pureblood wizards. We are born to greatness, and the Ministry of Magic is trying to strip us of our greatness, to allow all that makes us special and different to be tainted - to deem us ordinary.”

“You are anything but ordinary, my Lord!” Shrieked Bellatrix, seemingly overcome with passion. Her face flushed.

Voldemort smiled at her, though not in a very genuine manner, and settled back into his chair at the head of the table, having completed his lap around the gathered Death Eaters. He took a deep breath and leaned back into the leather-and-mahogany chair, stroking the snake’s chin with his raised index finger, thoughtful for a moment. Finally, his eyes turned to look over the witches and wizards gathered about the table and the corner of his mouth quirked up. “We shall have to take care of this. Promptly.” He motioned toward the pamphlet. “Bella… Rudolphus… Would the two of you care to dispose of that?”

Severus wondered why Voldemort hadn’t asked him to dispose of it, as the pamphlet was closest to him on the table, and it would be the easiest for him to throw it away. But nobody else seemed to think it was odd - nor did Bellatrix or Rudolphus reach for the pamphlet. Severus looked around the table, confused.

Voldemort smiled, and continued to stroke Nagini’s head. “We shall show them that we will not tolerate their degradation of us,” he murmured, “Will we, my pet?” And he let out a series of low, ghastly hissings that sent shivers ‘round the table.




It was later that night, long after the majority of the Death Eaters had left the Malfoy mansion, that Severus walked down the long hallway to the room that Voldemort had claimed as his own. The hall was lit only by flickering torches, mounted high, and glowing with an eerie green flame that Abraxus had magicked there long ago. They dimly illuminated guild picture frames and their yawning, bored-looking inhabitants, each affixed with little brass plates, describing the name and titles of each of the witches or wizards. Purebloods, the lot of them, and the line went on and on and on, as far down the hall as Severus could see. Centuries worth of traceable bloodline and pure all the way.

He’d been helping the Dark Lord with the legilimency training for the entire month, every night, and the Voldemort was, indeed, getting much better at it. Severus was thankful he’d spent such a long time reading and studying the books he’d gotten from the Hogwarts library - they’d been an immense help in teaching the art of legilimency to Lord Voldemort. However, he was even more thankful that he had not limited his study to only the reading of minds, but also to the closing of minds - occlumency. It allowed him to keep private his own thoughts, burying them deeper than the places where the Dark Lord would know to look.

Perhaps even deeper than he, himself, Severus, would look, for that matter. It was where he had stored his thoughts of Lily Evans for the time being - the only place she would be safe. Tucked away, hidden from the Dark Lord.

He arrived to Voldemort’s room and gently raised his hand to knock, but before he had, there came a voice from within, “I know you are here. Come in.”

Severus stepped inside.

The Dark Lord was sitting in a highbacked chair by the fireplace, the snake Nagini coiled up on the hearth like a dog. He waved his wand and the door shut behind Severus. He walked across the room and sat on the ottoman of the chair, looking up at Voldemort. He was inspecting his wand thoughtfully, quietly. The man looked tired, Severus thought.

“I am,” the raspy voice said. His eyes moved from the wand to meet Severus’s steadily. “Quite tired, actually.”

The Dark Lord was thinking - perhaps obsessing was a better word - about the Muggle Liaison Coalition pamphlets and what they represented. Severus could see the pamphlet quite clearly in his mind - like pictures of it had been burned upon the retinas. He stared straight into the flickering of the fireplace before him, forcing back thoughts the pamphlet threatened him to have, which he did not wish the Dark Lord see.

“The pamphlet was published by a group of rights activists at the Ministry,” Voldemort said, breaking the silence. Severus turned to look at him, but Voldemort was looking at the fire, too. The ring on his finger caught Severus’s eyes again. The stone was the deepest black that Severus had ever seen. “The Department of Magical Community Welfare and the Interspecies Liaison Office. Have you heard of this committee?”

“No sir,” Severus said quietly, wondering why Voldemort would think he had.

Voldemort chuckled under his breath, “You should learn to know your enemies, boy,” he said in answer to Severus’s thoughts.

“Know my enemy?” Severus asked, confused once again.

“Yes, Severus. You should always know your enemies. Know their stories, know what they care for and what they hold dear and you will be given extreme leverage in battle against them. Like Nagini here,” he said, smiling at his snake, coiled up by the fire, “She can kill grown men many times her size because she knows exactly where to strike.” He brought two long-fingered nails to his neck, miming Nagini’s long fangs.

Severus’s throat seemed to close up with nerves at the motion as Voldemort lowered his hand, he couldn’t help but glance at the snake, more wary of her now that it had been implied that she could kill a man. How did Voldemort know she could if she hadn’t before? The thought chilled him right to the spine.

“Is the Lupin boy not one of your enemies at Hogwarts?” Voldemort asked.

Severus looked up, surprised. “I - yes, I suppose he is. What’s this got to do with him?”

Voldemort replied, “The Department of Magical Community Welfare and the Interspecies Liaison Office is headed by Lyall Lupin, father of Remus Lupin, your enemy. I thought you might have known about the committee - and if you knew your enemies then you would have. In the future, know who your enemies are. Always.” Now, standing, Voldemort said, “You were confused at dinner. About the disposal.”

Severus nodded.

Voldemort smiled darkly. “You see, my boy, this disposal will benefit you as well, once you return to Hogwarts…” He was now studying his wand again, his eyes twinkling with delight. “I know my enemies. I know who they are. I know, as I said, what they care for. I know where to strike to destroy them.”

“Sir?” Severus asked, still confused exactly where Voldemort was going with these words.

Voldemort’s eyes moved to Severus and he saw the almost frenzied look of delight glinting at him from deep in the Dark Lord’s soul. A sort of passionate mania seemed to seep forth from the man as he grinned, revealing his perfectly straight, perfectly white teeth, the face of charm and elegance bending and twisting into one of insane delight. “Let’s just say that Lyall Lupin will no longer foster the appetite for spreading his filth and lies by the time my Death Eaters are finished with their work tonight.”