Let there be a Feast!

by Kat-Knife

The thick, nauseating odor of rotting flesh is what prompts me to open my eyes and when I do, I wish that I hadn't. My brother, Sirius's, misshapen body hangs upside down just above the centerpiece of the table. He looks like a wax figure that an artist has painted. A masterpiece. He looks like a fallen angel, his hope, innocence, light, all gone, stolen.

The thick, nauseating odor of rotting flesh is what prompts me to open my eyes and when I do, I wish that I hadn't. I'm sitting in a grand hall, the hall of my ancestors in Black Manor, seated at a dining table across from my fellow companions, the Death Eaters. To the left of me, at the head of the table, sits our master, Lord Voldemort, looking grotesque in the dim lighting, his face thrown in unnatural shadows, his eyes slits of red, his head a misshapen blob atop his head. But that isn't what horrifies me, no, it's the sight that lies above us, tethering precariously over our heads from large meat hooks.

The sight of my brother, Sirius, his misshapen body hanging upside down just above the centerpiece of the table. The meat hooks sunk cruelly into the soft flesh of his ankles, hooking through them cleanly and jutting out to the other side. His eyes are open, the bright blue colour now grey and lackluster. I know from the grey sheen of his skin that he is gone. He hangs there, swinging above our heads. The only perceptible movement in the hall comes from the occasional drop of blood that oozes out from the many gashes adorning his bloated form and makes its slow trek to his pallid face, and then his hair, before dripping onto the table. He wears no clothing except for a rough, grey cloth that barely covers his modesty. His body looks battered, bruised, mottled in hues of blue, purple, green, black. His face adorned in cuts that still bleed, despite the fact that he is gone. I don't know how that's possible, but somehow it is. He looks like a wax figure that an artist has painted. A masterpiece. He looks like a fallen angel, his hope, innocence, light, all gone, stolen.

I wrench my eyes from him, looking down at the plate in front of me, only to hold back a scream of terror that threatens to break free from my parched throat. There in front of me is the bloody head of James Potter, his brown eyes open wide, looking at me accusingly. His glasses are still perched on his nose. My eyes move down his unscarred face to his neck, where I see that someone has used a blunt knife to crudely sever his head from his torso. Dried blood crusts the skin of his severed neck. I move my gaze down lower and see the bloody hilt of the knife that must have been used to do the job. I reach a trembling hand to the hilt of the knife and gasp silently. My right hand is coated with blood. Bright, red, scarlet blood and suddenly I realize who has killed James Potter. Me. His blood coats my fingers and drips almost cathartically to the floor. I was the one that cut the silvery cord of his life, cut it short long before its prime.

I turn my head away to the side, feeling sick with horror, bile rising up in thick undulating waves to my throat, but I push it all down, refusing to succumb to illness in front of my master or my fellow Death Eaters.

My eyes flick up at the sudden noise of a throat clearing and I meet eyes with my cousin, Bellatrix. She looks at me with proud eyes, stars reflected in her onyx irises. She gives me a curved smile, silently indicating that she is proud, proud of me, proud of all the destruction, the violence, the deaths. Proud of the senseless carnage.

"Let there be a feast!" the serpentine voice of Lord Voldemort slithers through our ranks, prompting me to give an unmistakable shiver of fear.

Immediately after the words are spoken, food appears on the table and the head of James Potter vanishes from my plate, to be replaced with a succulent looking meal. Meat, layered with a thick coat of gravy, moist potatoes, crisp, viridian, green vegetables. The meal looks mouthwateringly delicious and I eagerly pick up my knife and fork and cut a slice of the succulent looking meat, before moving it to my mouth. The trek of the delicious looking food stops to my mouth as a noticeable change comes over the food. It starts to grey, shrinking into itself, green spots start to appear on the meat, the potatoes become bruised, the vegetables morph into brown sludge, maggots start to appear within the spoiled feast, growing bigger and worming holes into the once delicious meal. I drop my fork in disgust and reflexively look up to see that the people around me continue to eat their spoiled food without care, crunching through the maggots and swallowing without care. This time I can't stop myself from retching violently to the side, unable to keep my revulsion within me.

That hall fades away into darkness and a gentle hand comes to rest on my back, soothing away the violent tremors and the retching subsides until only the quivering remains. I look up to thank the nameless individual only to feel the words curl up and die in my throat. There, looking at me with compassionate blue eyes, is the one man that I have taught myself to hate above all others, even Mudbloods, Albus Dumbledore.

"It's alright my boy." he gently tells me, continuing to rub my back reassuringly. I stare at him with unblinking eyes, paralyzed by his kindness. The next moment his face morphs into the shape of a faceless horror, a dementor. The soothing hand turns into a vice grip that bites into the skin of my shoulders. The putrid breath of the dementor stings my eyes and forces out tears as the dementor's mouth comes closer to me. I struggle in vain to move away as the mouth comes closer and closer, sucking the energy out of me, I watch through rapidly closing eyes as my soul leaves my body, coming closer to the puckered, rotting visage of the dementor's mouth. The last thing that I hear before passing into blessedly cool oblivion is a strong voice yelling, "Expecto Patronum!"