A Cunning Plan
Little Bingington was an ordinary town. Once upon a time, it had been an ordinary English village. That was before the war.
Along the High Street, there were The Grocer and The Post Office. Developers had attractively converted The Smithy into an Antiques Mall and Town Museum, where iron tongs and pictures of Ye Olde Bingingtonians decorated the walls (open Tuesday to Saturday from 10 am until 4:30 pm, closed during lunch). Located discretely down a side street, Pappatam's served curries take away or dine-in. In the village square that was, where once farmers had driven their livestock to market, Greenfield's traded in Fine Country Motors.
Down the tap end of the main road, in defiance of every precept of taste, Bongo's did a brisk business in CDs. They offered a worthy selection of vintage vinyl in the back room, comic books, and out-of-date magazines and newspapers. Housewives in headscarves hurried past the Nine Inch Nails spilling out the door and studiously ignored Alice Cooper and Marilyn Manson leering from the windows. Rose Cottage, across the way because the rents were cheaper, offered Afternoon Tea.
At the end of the road, for no particular reason, a sign announced Bingington Hall, 2 km. The local misters and missuses had lived at Bingington Hall before the war. Henry Tudor (Henry the Seventh, he whose only claim to fame was the overthrow of the Plantagenets) rewarded the first Bingington, a knight who had done some service at Bosworth Field, with a blue garland, a grant of land, and an annuity. Since that time, the gentle men and gentle women had ridden out; attended balls; gone to battles; gone to India and the Empire; and come home again – until there were no more Bingingtons left. However, this was all before the war.
A firm of solicitors now managed the property. Occasionally they sent someone down in a builder's van. The vans motored up the winding high street, turned in at the gates of Bingington Hall and disappeared behind the screen of cypress trees. Some time later, the vans would return and motor back to the main road and never seen again until the next time. For a long time, no one in Bingington Town paid much attention to Bingington Hall.
Yet lately rumours had begun to ripple out over the town: The health service was converting Hall to a juvenile detention facility. They were going to open a psychiatric hospice. ("Loonies!" Old Hamish slapped the bar in the Stag and Hind. "Bingingtons bringing in loonies!"), or an orphanage; wealthy foreigners had purchased it; the National Trust was taking it on.
Something certainly seemed to be going on up at The Hall. Odd shadows appeared between the trees, and lights flickered in the windows at night. The grounds had begun to seep mist. What the inhabitants of Little Bingington could not know was that something interesting was finally happening in their midst.
Dusted down and scrubbed up, Bingington Hall was a comfortable place, and few rooms were more inviting than the great library (despite their aristocratic taint, the family had been remarkably bookish). Volumes lined the walls from ceiling to floor. A west-facing wall was entirely a window, as fine an example of Elizabethan mullion as any in the country. Turkey carpets covered the floors in many rooms. The furniture was large, leather, and overstuffed. Chairs faced each other in front of fireplaces large enough for three men to stand in. A burning fire was the only light in the library on this night. The library only missed a faithful, old foxhound sleeping on the hearthrug, although there was a snake.
A man pushed open the doors opposite the fire and entered the library. He was wearing a long dark gown and pushing a trolley. There was a mask pushed up atop his head. He stopped in front of his master; a tall, slim figure slumped down in a chair.
"Tea, my lord."
"Put it there, Rorschach." Lord Voldemort pointed a boney finger at a small round table.
Rorschach pushed the trolley along. One of the wheels squeaked. Voldemort had been listening to it all the way down the long hall from the kitchen: rattle, rattle squeak; rattle, rattle squeak.
The deatheater laid a clean, starched linen cloth on the table and set out Spode and silver.
"India, my lord?"
"Hmm Darjeeling," Voldemort stroked his cheek and closed his eyes. He was trying to grasp a mental image of the Potter boy – "Where was he?" "What was he doing?" -- without much success. There seemed to be some kind of interference.
"Sugar, my lord?" Rorschach, holding silver tongs, stood poised over the sugar bowl.
Voldemort drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair. The deatheater dropped three lumps of sugar into the bowl of the cup.
"Milk? Cream?"
Voldemort's eyelids fluttered for a moment. He cracked open one slit eye. "Cream, lots of cream," he purred, flicking his tongue.
Rorschach sloshed in the cream, gave the cup a stir, set the spoon carefully on the saucer, and held it out to his master. Voldemort inhaled deeply and returned to directing his thoughts, like black smoke, to glide around whatever obstacle was blocking them.
"Voices," he mused, "…there are voices. Someone is speaking…" Only he was unable to sense what the speaker was saying.
Abruptly Voldemort sat up and looked around. Rorschach was standing over him, teacup and saucer in hand. Voldemort took them.
"That's very good, Rorschach."
"Thank you, my lord." He bowed.
Voldemort drew the tea up under his nose and sniffed. "Tea…cream…sugar…nothing else, except…demerara?"
"I'm sorry, my lord. It's all I could find."
How standards had slipped since he'd blasted the Boy-Who-Lived.
"There are ginger snaps and some Nice biscuits…" Rorschach's voice trailed off.
Voldemort peered at the rectangular, brown slabs. "They don't look very nice. No Chocolate Garibaldis?" The Dark Lord asked.
Rorschach blenched. "They don't make them anymore, my lord." He lowered his head and glanced obliquely at the door behind his master's chair.
Muggles really were useless. They deserved everything the Deatheaters did to them. Voldemort took a ginger snap and dipped it into his tea. He slumped back into the chair and set to nibbling the edges of his ginger snap. Crumbs fell into the tea. Lord Voldemort really hated crumbs in his tea. The slushy sediment at the bottom of the cup always made him feel especially cranky.
"There is a packet of Pink Wafers, if you'd like…"
Voldemort turned a baleful eye on Rorschach, who quailed and sank to his knees, "Master, I…"
"You would bring me – Pink Wafers!" Voldemort hissed. First crumbs, now this.
Rorschach threw himself on his face and whimpered. Voldemort rose from the chair and kicked him over. He set his foot on the quivering deatheater's neck.
"NO. PINK. WAFERS. Don't ever mention Pink Wafers again!"
"No master! I mean yes master!" Rorschach reached out and touched the hem of Lord Voldemort's robe. Just then, another deatheater burst through the door.
"What is it, Nott?" snarled Voldemort.
"Forgive me master! I tried to stop her…"
Bellatrix LesStrange pushed Nott aside.
"Master, My master!" Bellatrix ran into the room, tripping over Rorschach who was crawling away, and falling at Lord Voldemort's feet.
"I have returned! Your most faithful servant has returned! You know I serve only you Master! I live only to serve you! Command me; I am yours! Oh my most glorious Master!" She clutched Voldemort's knees. He recoiled back into his comfy chair.
"Oh stop blathering, woman!" He cried out. Really, this was too much. Muggles had a word for this sort of thing. With one hand he gripped the arm of the chair.
"Master! You are plotting the destruction of baby Potty, widdle Potty-Wotty?"
"Actually Bella," his voice flowed as smoothly as melted chocolate, "Actually, I was trying to have a nice cup of tea, which has now gone cold." He set the cup and saucer on the table in disgust. "And I was plotting the destruction…what do you think you're doing?"
"Mmpfr?" Bella looked up at Voldemort, her eyes wide and shining with adoration. She pulled Voldemort's toes out of her mouth. "Master?"
Voldemort rubbed his foot against the Axminster. He wondered whether they had developed these little fetishes before or after becoming Deatheaters: Nott with his bits of string; Rorschach with his pots of ink; even Lucius and…it was too awful to think about; and Bella, who was now massaging his knees and cooing.
Well, it did feel rather nice. Voldemort settled back in his chair, letting his hands rest lightly on the arms. He closed his eyes again and wondered, not for the first time, what it would be to have sweet memories of playing with a kitten in a sunny garden, a little white kitten with fur so soft and smooth. His fingers grasped reflexively, as he imagined stroking its tiny ears. It nipped playfully at his fingers with needle-sharp teeth, and tiny claws clutched his hand. He jerked his hand away, "Bella!"
"Master?" Her eyes were moist.
"Why don't you do something with yourself?"
"What would you have me do, master? Shall I find a muggle to torture? There are plenty in the village. They don't even suspect."
Voldemort sighed. Well, it was like a sigh. Of course, he had no such memories. He squeezed the fantasy feline, cast it away, and returned to the problem of the Potter. Nagini raised her head from the hearthrug, flicked her tongue several times, and settled back into her own serpentine dreams.
Out in the hall there was another commotion. "I must…I must…" Someone rattled the door handle. There were several thumps against the wall. "How dare you…" "You can't…" "Let go of me!" The door banged open.
Panting and sweating, Peter Pettigrew stumbled across the room and flung himself in front of Lord Voldemort.
"Ah, Peter," Voldemort oiled, "You have a tale to tell."
"Oh great lord, fain would I tell you, but…the horror! Oh the horror!" Peter whimpered. He rubbed his face with the sleeve of his robe.
"Come, Wormtail. Come to me and disgorge the meat of your tale. Enumerate your hazards and unfold the mysteries of your maundering." Voldemort beckoned his trembling servant closer.
Wormtail slunk to his master's side, bent over close to Voldemort, and in an urgent whisper told him of his researches. Voldemort chuckled as he tapped his fingers together.
The Deatheaters shifted uneasily. The Master looked so pleased, while Wormtail was becoming more and more distressed.
"Oh Master!" Wormtail paused and clasped his claw like hand. The new replacement hand – which frankly gave the rest of the Deatheaters the willies – looked like needing a good polishing. His eyes were rheumy, and he shuddered and twitched.
"Go on." Voldemort gestured Wormtail to him again. One of the logs in the fire popped and Bella cried out and clutched at Rorschach's arm. He tried to pull away, but her nails were digging in. He noticed that they looked broken and chewed.
Voldemort smiled, "Why Bella, you are not usually so sensitive." She laughed weakly. He looked up at Wormtail, "Please continue," he said with perfect comity.
Wormtail glanced around at the other Deatheaters. It seemed to him that they were edging away, and was MacNair actually looking towards the door? He turned again to tell Lord Voldemort the terrible things he had learned.
"I see. I see." The Dark Lord murmured. "Binomial."
Wormtail's tale grew more frantic. The more he twitched the wider grew Voldemort's smile; his eyes began to shine. It was diabolical. It was cunning. It was…degenerate. Then something the sometime Pettigrew said stunned even the Dark Lord, "Kurtosis!"
Peter took a deep breath and launched into another explanation.
"Ah," Voldemort sighed, "so it's not actually contagious."
Pettigrew shook his head. "But it tends to spread rapidly."
"Hmmm. Is that it?"
"Master, please!" Peter whined. "I beg you, no more! Even the memory…"
Voldemort was not to be placated and Pettigrew had no choice but to finish his dreadful recitation.
When he had done, Voldemort laughed, a long, horrible, low, rumbling laugh. He flicked his wand casually at the door. It swung shut. "My friends," began Lord Voldemort, unfolding himself from the chair. "My faithful friends," he intoned.
MacNair, Nott, Rorschach, and Bella huddled closer together.
"Wormtail has brought me news of the most wonderful, the most terrible torment." He laid a hand on Pettigrew's shoulder. Peter winced and cringed and cried silently into his bunched up robe.
"DEATHEATERS HEAR ME! The muggles…" The Dark Lord grinned and stroked his wand. "The muggles have devised the means of their own ruination."
This time the Deatheaters stepped back as one.
"Madness and despair will stalk the land!"
MacNair sank to his knees. "What is this…marvellous weapon?"
Lord Voldemort drew himself up and stared down at his huddled minions. He licked his papery lips, his eyes narrowed to mere slits. "HR Training Videos."