In the green of a town in northern Wales, a man stood surrounded by many more.
They knelt, their bone masks almost alive in the fire light, as they gazed up at their lord.
The lord in question wore no mask. Indeed, he seemed a teenager , tall, and dark, no older than twenty five. In his hand lay a stick, pointed at a small family that floated in the air. The man flopped, as if dead, and the baby cried. The woman just stared in shock at the destruction about her, and the corpses. Oh, the corpses.
"Who are you?"
"Muggle." A sneer was on his face.
"Quiet, before my greatness."
She stared at him.
"What are you."
The man sighed, and pointed at one of the kneeling.
"All I want to hear from the scum is screams."
The designated stood and bowed. Then he took aim with his own stick, muttering something.
The woman stared in disbelief at where her arm was once attached.
"Why are you doing this."
The man snarled.
"That it? Be more creative."
The masked one gulped, and the stick swished again. This time the woman screamed, as slowly her skin peeled off her body. One of the masks at the back gagged.
"Oh? Disgusts you, does it?
"I am disappointed in you, Grover."
The others scrambled away. The Masked one lowered his wand, distracted.
"Avada Kedavra." The gag-ee fell over, dead. His mask disintegrated, revealing a man with salt and pepper hair and a scarred face.
"What have we ever done to you?"
"Done? Your existence alone disgusts me. Lower than animals."
His wand turned on the baby.
"Crucio."
The wails stopped, and the baby convulsed for a minute, and then stilled.
"You-" the woman snapped out of her shock. She shook, but not in fear.
"You absolute bastards! My Daughter!"
She turned on the man.
"I will murder you, drag you through the pits of hell, let Cerberos feast on your ever-feeling flesh and bury your heart in acid. I will make you feel this pain all your repentance. I and all my reincarnations will hunt you and haunt you, leave you no rest or comfort. Monster, I will turn you human, and then break you until you beg for the end."
The man just looked amused.
"Oh, the muggle can speak!"
"You bastard son of a whore, look at me!"
The man pulled up one eyebrow and looked at her. He played cool, but his shoulders tense.
"Ah?"
"My family will avenge me. So swears I, Diana Hitchens, wife of Henry Roberts"
A cold laugh split the air.
"Light her on fire"
She goes up in a pillar of flames.
Near the back, a young John Burke shivered as heat danced over his body. For a moment he thought he has been hit by the curse, not the muggle filth, but then the feeling passes.
Distracted, he does not notice when the person kneeling beside him toppled over.
Hidden behind mask and cloak, Lisa Roberts stares at the flames that were her mother.
She is six. Yet still she whispers.
"It is heard, so mote it be."
Then she collapses, and dies.