AN: Thank you to Whitehound for her invaluable contributions.


It was a larger group of the younger men then I ever remembered seeing together at once. There were none of the Elders in the group. There were very boisterous and free with the information they let flow.

"Oi, Greg! I am so jealous you got to wear one!"

"Did you see the snake coil back? I almost wet myself I tell you!"

"I tell you it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw!"

"I was there, I was there! And did you see their faces when they saw who was behind the mask? I tell you, it was a grand moment, it was!"

Peaches slid into the lap of Caddoc Warrington with two glasses of champagne.

"So what are we celebrating tonight, boys?"

It was Crabbe who jumped up and waved his glass.

"We drink to a changing of the guards!"

There was much shouting at that and some mutterings of 'about time' before he continued.

"We drink to the new future!"

"Sounds like a lovely story!" laughed one of the girls.

"I want to hear a story!" shouted another. This began a chorus of 'tell us!' and the foolish men were too full of themselves to realize they were being played.

It was Theo Nott who was voted to tell the story and I must say he did an impressive job. Hearing him tell it was almost as good as being there.

This was the story he told:

The Dark Lord was displeased, each man had felt his recent discontent through the mark. Why had been the cause of much speculation but there was no information coming from any channels, just rumor and innuendo. No one was expecting or in any way prepared for the pain of the mark burning with the energy of an undeniable Summons. Over a hundred men and a few dozen women clambered to get to the hall of the Wizengamot first in a panicked show of loyalty. Nott saw his father take his seat along with the other Elders. The were ranged about in a half circle closer to the floor across from the solitary throne, empty now but for the great snake coiling about it. The rest of them settled into the rows flowing upward in a semi circle. When they were all settled in the dimly lit chamber, lights flared and Lord Voldemort entered into the room, closely followed by a tall, masked Death Eater. This caused a stir. Since the rise of the Dark Lord, much of the ritual and ceremony of the group had fallen to the wayside. The tradition of wearing the mask was one of them. They all had one, but it usually hung on a wall or in a curio cabinet as a symbol of prestige. There was no use for it in day to day affairs anymore. Nott had never gotten the chance to wear his into battle. To see one being worn brought to mind darker days, when they were all hungry for the power they grew fat on later. Young Nott noticed some of the Elders reacted strongly to the sight and started to mutter in anger.

"Silence!" hissed the Dark Lord. Nott was stuck by his appearance. It had been some time since his last audience and he found himself again intensely ill at ease with how inhuman he looked. Papery skin that stretched too thin over his boney scalp looked almost green. Red reptilian eyes flamed angrily out of the slit-nosed face. Everyone was silent and completely focused on him as he walked to his throne but did not sit. He paced in front of it as his escort took a place of honor to the right and just behind. Even Nott gasped at this. Only Bellatrix ever stood there. So, one void had been filled. Nott looked down on the front row trying to see who wasn't seated Only two chairs empty, one had been empty since the death of Rudolphus Lestrange and the other was Dolohov's. 'So, that's the way of it,' he thought. The light in the room dimmed until only the Dark Lord himself and his lone sentinel were fully visible.

"Treachery!" cried Lord Voldemort. The room fell as silent as a tomb. Nott himself stopped breathing. Ah, there was so much treachery in this room tonight, it is only a matter of which one, he marveled.

"You jackals and dogs who claim to have given me your allegiance!" he continued. "You are a disgrace, with your petty plots trying to hold onto your petty little powers! Have I raised you up to become a laughingstock? So word of your incompetence and treachery can be spoken about openly among shop keepers and witches in the market?" Around him quite noise resumed as people shifted nervously in their seats.

"I will not have it! I will purge this room of any who have raised the feel of gold over their fealty! Mark my words. It is done, and so it begins." With that he spun on his heel and gesturing toward the wide doors in the back he shouted "Bring in the traitor!" Nott's gut clenched in fear.

The doors swung wide and in walked two masked Death Eaters, shorter and stockier than the tall elegant one by the throne. Between them they dragged another man. It was apparent he could not walk, from the broken angle of his legs. As they approached the center, Lord Voldemort gestured to the throne.

"Put him there, that is where he hoped his schemes would get him!" As they came around they worked together to shift their prisoner into position and then flung him into the seat. Nagini hissed and coiled back but did not strike. The Death Eater beside the throne didn't react at all. He kept his face on the Dark Lord at all times, and Nott belatedly realized that was what he should have done as well. He looked now. It was out of the corner of his eye he saw the other Death Eaters step back, and retreat off to the side of the room.

"Present the would-be-Lord to his court," hissed Voldemort.

Quick as a viper, the first Death Eater shot his hand forward and, grabbing a fistful of hair, snapped the head of the prisoner up and back against the throne, revealing him to all. A ragged moan escaped the prisoner's lips but was soon drowned out by the roar of shock that filled the room.

Dolohov! Nott was electrified as shock and awe shot through him but it was soon replaced by a seething pleasure. Another one falls, even more for us now.

"Behold the traitor! Behold a man, not content with what I have bestowed upon him but who hungered for this very seat of power itself!"

Voldemort turned and swept the room with his contemptuous gaze.

"You ask yourselves now, how can this be? I hear your shallow little thoughts. I tell you now, you do not need to know! You need only concern yourself with the fact that I found out! I always find out! Look to yourselves, you dogs! Know that before he broke he confessed all!" He whipped his gaze back to the Death Eater behind the throne. "Did he not?" The man remained silent but nodded his head slowly. Who was he? If not Dolohov, then who was missing? Nott tried in vain to think of who it could be as he looked down on the Elders ranged below. No one else was missing. And then a notion gripped him. But one was never there. One had never sat in this chamber. There was one who had only lived to serve and then disappeared into obscurity, only recently making fleeting appearances. Nott looked back at the Death Eater beside the throne and took his measure. Oh yes. Yes, indeed. His robes were of a much, much finer cut than seen on him or any others lately and the mask and hood obscured his head, but there was no mistaking the regal bearing or the stiff spine. Or the way, by his very attentiveness to every word or gesture of the Dark Lord, he seemed to show the room how it was done. It had to be Severus Snape, the last of the true Death Eaters. One who never could be corrupted by the power and greed around him. At that moment Nott felt his loyalties fixate on this man and rejoiced to see this symbol of all things Slytherin, ascendant once again. Nott was going to ascend with him. He looked around at his fellows seated near and wondered if they had caught on yet.

"Behold the fate of traitors!" cried Lord Voldemort. "CRUCIO!"

Nott watched in fascination that slowly turned to horror as Dolohov spasmed and crumpled off of the throne. As he thrashed Nagini, coiled on the floor near him, struck again and again apparently immune to the effects of the curse. Still the Dark Lord poured his anger into torturing his prisoner. It seemed to go on forever until with a shriek filled with madness, a madness that curdled in Nott's belly, he shouted out the killing curse and Dolohov fell still in a blaze of vile green light. Nott had to strain to keep his bowels from letting go.

Into the tomb-like quiet of the room the Dark Lord quietly spoke his last words of the evening, "You will be purged. You will be reforged. And you will be renewed. Or you will be destroyed." And with that he spun on his heel and left the chamber.

His attending Death Eater did not follow and nobody moved. He raised an elegant, long fingered hand and snapped and the masked Death Eaters against the wall came up and made a fairly good show of not being terrified while wrestling the body away from the snake. When they had it they dragged it out of the chamber. The lone masked Death Eater looked up at his audience and then took one deliberate step until he was directly behind the throne and then slowly reached up and took off his mask.

No one made a sound as Snape perused the gathering and then with the slightest sideways bow of his head he replaced his mask and left the chamber with his robes flaring out after him.

The room erupted into pandemonium when he left. Nott looked down at the thunderous expression on his own father's face and smugly thought, 'your time is over, old man.'


Canon Quibble: The books contain a Slytherin Quiddich player listed as C. Warrington, who is a few levels ahead of Harry. His first name is my addition. Also, as Whitehound pointed out, the Death Eater masks in the books were a bit of cloth with eyeholes. I decided to go with the movies' portrayal for my storytelling purposes.