In a poorly-lit but well decorated room, Lucius Malfoy was slumped unconscious in a luxurious armchair, before him stood the Dark Lord Voldemort. A shark-like grin on his face Voldemort waved his wand over Malfoy's hand and from underneath his fingernails came several small rusty-red clumps. A small glass vial appeared in Voldemort's hand without a word and the red clumps quickly settled into it. With a turn of a heel Voldemort vanished

He appeared in yet another poorly lit room but aside from the lack of lighting the two rooms were very different. Where the first room had contained an armchair with an unconscious evil aristocrat, this room was much larger and contained a large pit filled with what could only be described as liquid pink muscle. He poured the clumps into the pit and watched as the flesh turned blood red.

"Wake up. Come on, wake up."

"Snorfgh"

"Perfect, just perfect; Dark Lord in my house, being forced to work for him and to top it all off my so-called 'assistant' is sleeping. Wake up!"

On summer mornings Draco Malfoy, scion of the Malfoy family, was used to sleeping in and being gently roused from his slumber by a house-elf. Today he was jolted from sleep by being slapped over the head by an armored hand.

"What! Who! Where!"

"Take your time Malfoy, I'm sure that you will grace the very air with an oral masterpiece. One that will make grown men and women weep."

Draco stared at the unchanging iron mask for a second, confusion in his eyes, after roughly five seconds of staring recognition slowly crept into his eyes.

"Potter?"
"Good, you can remember events that happened less than a day ago. Now that you've demonstrated the mental skills of a small child I am just filled with confidence."

"Shut up Potter, I just woke up."

"That might have been a valid excuse in the halls of Hogwarts, or in your family's mansion but not here, not now. Now shut up and help me."

Harry stormed off not even looking to see if Draco was following him.

Harry entered a small circular room, no more than three feet wide; Draco stumbled in after him panting.

"You said you needed help?"

"I need several things, but right now? Just don't scream."

"Wha-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah"

Draco's question was cut off by a scream of terror as the floor glowed, detached itself from the wall and fell.

Deeper and deeper, faster and faster it fell; all the while Draco's screams grew in pitch. The floor stopped abruptly but Draco's screams did not, earning him another slap from Harry. The floor had stopped in a dark cavern

"Shut up will you? I can barely here myself think."
Draco drew himself up to his full height, a good few inches taller than Harry, and glared with enough acid to melt steel.

"A little warning next time, Potter, I was merely taken by surprise."

"Of course you were your lordship, but if I were you I would pay close attention. This is gonna make that little ride seem like a trip to Hogsmeade."

Harry slapped his hands together and the cavern was filled with light, blinding Draco momentarily. He stumbled around, blinking rapidly; head pointed at the ground before he straightened up and stared. The floor had stopped in a cavern that was bigger than the cabin above it. Draco rubbed his eyes, looked again and immediately reconsidered his thoughts. 'No' he thought 'it's much, much, larger than that hovel'

The cavern was so large, Draco mused that the ceiling was as high as the tallest tower of Hogwarts, and he could not see any end to it, no matter which direction he looked in. The source of light was a massive summoning circle, similar to ones he saw in his father's dark art books that he stole when he was thirteen. The floor they were standing on was in the very center in it.

"Draco, I need you to do two things, number one: shut up, number two: hold these." Harry said as he removed two glowing orbs from the pockets of his robe and shoved them into Draco's hands.

"When I tell you to crush them, crush them. Not a moment before, do you understand? If you screw this up you'll kill us both, and I don't want to die in some gods-forsaken cavern in Russia."

Draco snorted, "I think you'll find that I am more than capa-"

"What did I just say about shutting up?" Harry rounded on the slytherin

"I was just-" Draco protested.

"I don't care! One word at the wrong moment and you could get both of our souls ripped out of our bodies! Now shut it."

Harry sank to his knees and raised clasped hands over his head.

"Oh great lord of Ice, B'gnu-Thun, guardian of The Library of Souls, Great General of the Army of the Eternal Frost, your humble servant begs an audience with you. Appear before us mere mortals!"

Harry then whispered to Draco to smash the orbs, which he somehow, miraculously, did not screw up. When the orbs were shattered green mist poured out of the shattered remains. The mist swirled around the summoning circle obscuring the rest of the cavern. When it vanished the Cavern was filled with white.

Draco blinked, rubbed his eyes, and blinked again. The massive cavern was completely obscured by white, it was not fog or anything resembling it, no it was as if the entire cavern was filled with white paint. Then a closed eye appeared just in front of them.

It was a truly massive eye, easily bigger than either of them, Draco opened his mouth, only for the eye to reveal its blue iris and meet Draco's own. When Draco stared into the eye, Draco truly understood Cold.

Every single cell of his body began to freeze; he could feel the saliva in his mouth quickly freezing, and his lungs becoming immobile. He desperately shut his eyes in an attempt to stop his imminent demise, but to no avail. He could feel ice creeping over his eyelids, shutting them permanently.

'Is- is this it? Is this how I die, but I'm Draco Malfoy; I am supposed to take over the Malfoy family and make it even more powerful. I'm supposed to drive those pathetic mudbloods into the ground for daring to associate themselves with proper wizards. I can't die here.'

Despite Draco's mental claims to the contrary, he could feel himself slipping away until a voice the ice surrounding his ears.

"My Lord, as much I find the Malfoy annoying it would make things extremely difficult if he happened to die on my property.

"Oh really," the voice that answered Harry was nothing anyone would consider human, even if it did speak English. It was like a glacier slow, and so, so cold. That alone wouldn't be threatening, but to Draco it reminded him of his father at his most dangerous: quiet, contemplative, but all it would take was one little mistake to send him into a rage.

"And why would the death of one little worm affect you so much? Especially a Malfoy, one of them hasn't formed a covenant in centuries. Damien Malfoy II formed a covenant with Ereshkigal. In exchange for dominion over his family Damien sacrificed three-hundred peasants to Ereshkigal. Ah, now I see your false master entrusted him to you."

"How dare you!" The words escaped Draco's mouth before he realized what he was saying. He glanced down, swallowed, and glared at the eye.

"How dare you accuse my family of consorting with demons! The Malfoy family is a proud, noble family that would rather die than be associated with such vile, detestable creatures!"

Draco continued to glare at the monster before he realized just what he said. He suddenly became very interested in his shoes with his eyes flicking between them and the eye. The eye slowly closed and then slammed open, accompanied with the most horrifying sound Draco had ever heard. To Draco it was as if someone had brewed the Essence of Evil, the potion Dark Lord Malciferous used to turn entire villages into ravenous monsters, increased its potency a hundredfold, and turned it into harsh, reverberating, unceasing noise. Realization struck Draco like a thunderbolt, "he's laughing," Draco whispered to himself. Horror and revulsion overcame him and threatened to make him vomit, 'what kind of monster,' he wondered, 'sounds like this when they're happy?' The eye stared at the young Malfoy, making him feel like his very soul was being dissected.

"It is at times like these that I am reminded how little of the universe you humans perceive, to consider Ereshkigal a demon. Believe me, small human, there are far, far, worse things in the universe then Ereshkigal; one of them being me."

His attention then turned to Harry, "why have you begged an audience with me?"
Harry bent his head. "My Lord, I have sought an audience with you so that I may have access to your near limitless knowledge. I seek two pieces of information: when I faced Lord Voldemort he was completely unaffected by the power of my gauntlets. When you gave them to me you said that no human being could withstand them. Yet Voldemort did so with ease, how?

"The answer is simple my apostle, a covenant. Your foe has made a pact with a god, a very powerful one."

"Who, My Lord?"

"There are very, very few gods that would be able to imbue their servant with such power. Even fewer that would be able to keep their covenant a secret from. Among those few one stands out: The Devourer of Corpses, Nidhoog."

_
Voldemort sat at a table for two that would not have looked amiss in a five-star restaurant. It was covered by a silk table cloth, napkins, and a veritable army of cutlery. There was only one difference; on the plate across from Voldemort there was a severed human head. A man appeared in the chair in front of the head. He did not walk, or apparated, or tear a wall in the fabric of reality accompanied by the screams of the damned. No, he simply appeared one moment not there, the next sitting comfortably in the chair as if he had been there for a while. He was dressed in a black muggle suit. The arms of the jacket were covered with strange silver ruins that slowly moved. Where eyes should have been there were empty sockets. His mouth was fixed in a smirk showing off rows and rows of sharp pointed teeth and beyond them a deep red light shined. He was completely bald, with absolutely no hair anywhere on his body. Voldemort was not remotely surprised, not even blinking at his sudden dinner companion.

"Good evening," he almost hissed with a slight nod of his head, "Lord Nidhoog."

"To you as well, Lord Voldemort," was the answer in possibly the strangest voice ever heard by man. On the surface, it was a low, calm, bass; but underneath there were hundreds and hundreds of other voices and tones like termites squirming inside of a tree. His mouth did not move when he spoke, instead his voice came from every direction. "Tell me," the god went on, "how goes the war?"

Voldemort allowed a small smile to cross his face, "it goes well soon I shall gain what I need to cement my victory over that rabble that opposes me."

"Ah yes the armor Mordred wore when he crushed that fool Arthur under his heel. But that's not all is it? No you have something else, a true knife in the dark, an admirable weapon."

"Perhaps, but compared to the armor, my 'knife' is nothing but a passing amusement."

A dark chuckle answered Voldemort; the dark god stood up and began slowly pacing around the table. "Four thousand years ago a civilization by the name of the Assyrians discovered iron. Their non-magical counterparts immediately used the advantage they had over their bronze using neighbors and slaughtered them. It was a wonderful time, filled with tortuous, drawn-out deaths. Their magical counterparts participated in all of this, sometimes sacrificing hundreds in dark ceremonies in order to gain more power, but they discovered something. With enough power they could imbue iron with power, emotions even. They used this to maintain power long after their non- magical counterparts fell from glory. They created new and more wonderful weapons the greatest of which were the Nails. Seven innocent children were sacrificed on the seventh day of the seventh month with seven ceremonial knives. The blades were then melted down and reforged into seven nails. Those nails had the power to transform even the lowliest of muggles into an assassin capable of killing the most powerful of wizards."

"Well," Voldemort drawled, "by the way you've been monologuing about it I assume you have a set or did you merely decide to go on yet another pointless rant?"

"Of course I do, my brother in power," with a snap of his fingers seven nails themselves into the dinner table. Casually, Voldemort tugged one out of the table and ran his fingers over the ruin-carved nail. He then threw it, as fast as a bullet, at the God's head. It stopped one inch behind Nidhoog's head, without turning around he grabbed the impromptu projectile out of the air.

"It seems as if they have some form of projectile ability," he drawled.

"Yes, we shall have to be more careful in the future." Voldemort folded his hands, reptilian smirk covering his face. "So tell me, Lord Nidhoog, how goes the war?"

The god turned around, smirk still on his face, and sat down. "The war goes well," and so the two dark lords plotted, spinning out intricate plans to trap their foes in the coming days.

First things first I apologize at the embarrassing gap in between updates. There is a reason for it besides me being a lazy bastard. Anything concerning the knife was not originally in this chapter or this story. It wa an idea I had at 3 in the morning that refused to go away, which forced me to re-do the plot completely. Updates should be coming out faster now that I don't have to change all of my plans.

P.S can anyone tell that I really, really like villains yet?