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Beta by Kristine Thorne
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Chapter Summary - A Short Interlude At Culloden - Somebody isn't very happy about the defeat of the Dark Lord and he wants revenge.
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Chapter Twenty Four – A Short Interlude at Culloden
A/N This is really short, it just fitted best on its own, the second chapter this week though, more next Friday.
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The seagulls swooped in from the sea amid the pendulous heavy cloud that was typical for April and went into a dive. A feast awaited them, warm and wet flesh lying on the grass glistening and inviting. Perhaps they squalled a little more exuberantly, as they scooped up the pieces up into their beaks before flying out to a rock just out to sea on which to tear apart their sumptuous lunch.
During the following day several hikers and other tourists found that it seemed like the perfect day to sing their favourite song in their head as they enjoyed the rough beauty of Culloden Muir. They only found that it was a shame that so many people had littered there to spoil it and did the right thing by picking a few pieces up and putting them in the bin.
Later that day a man wearing a bright fluorescent coat parked a truck by the side of the road and toured the site removing the bin bags. He wondered that so much rubbish could be dumped in one day but nevertheless was rather impressed that for once they had managed to put it all in the right place, rather than merely throwing it to the ground like the tourists normally did.
Many hours later a truck tipped its load somewhere just outside of Glasgow, the man tipping the truck held his breath at the smell and drove off when it was done. Another truck immediately followed and tipped its load on top of the first.
A man stood on the moor at Culloden, he wore a cloak and his blond hair blew in the breeze of a windy but warm night. This had been meant as their last resort plan, the one they hadn't thought that they really needed to make. For one man come to Culloden and resurrect the Dark Lord.
Yet again the Potter boy seemed to have surprised them all, who would have thought that he would have survived this time and not a trace to be found anywhere of the battle that must have surely taken place.
But survive he had and beneath the ground lay the evidence of the struggle, the ground was full of bodies, all magically buried with no disturbance made to the ground, all Death Eaters. The Potter boy must have had help, it was the only explanation; even the famous Gryffindor wasn't immortal or invincible. From whom, was the greatest puzzle.
The ground was full of bodies, apart from the ones that the man wanted and expected to find. Seven loyal Death Eaters and the Dark Lord himself had agreed to be magically altered so that their flesh would live beyond death and could be summoned to the surface shortly after burial or at any point in time thereafter. The bodies would break into chunks and wriggle through the ground, only breaking up onto the grass when they were called upon to rise. From that point they could be easily resurrected and the Death Eaters would rise again, in the unlikely event that one boy could somehow defeat them all in battle.
The man, the wizard rather, kicked at stones as he stomped over the moor. They were the only bodies that were completely missing and no one on this earth bar himself and the wizards involved had known of the plan. It was impossible, quite clearly impossible. He summoned and summoned until his wand would have protested if it could speak and still nothing. The wizard could sense beneath the earth and could identify none of the chosen ones lying there though he could identify many others quite well.
Their worst case scenario plan had been a complete disaster, all that was needed was a small part of the Dark Lord's body to resurrect him, to make him live again and yet all seemed to be lost. The wizard could not understand why but he knew that the Potter boy must have somehow been responsible for their failure, some magical loophole he had once more accidentally stumbled upon.
I am a Death Eater, the wizard thought, and Potter is mine if it is the last thing I do. He was determined to find him and prevail; this insult could not go un-revenged, the wizard knew that it was his job to do it and he knew that, now most of the Death Eaters were dead, it would be the last thing the boy expected.
He was a pure blood from an ancient family, not like the half Muggle born and Muggle raised Potter boy and he would crush him, he would not stop till it was done. If need be he would become the new Dark Lord himself and Harry Potter would wish that he had never raised his wand at Culloden. He would prevail by whatever covert means he could sneakily devise, after all, he was a Slytherin and he was a Malfoy, and he was going to make sure that that still counted for something in this world. In his extreme arrogance he knew that he could succeed.
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Coming Soon - Chapter Twenty Five - Aquaintance - Harry and Severus discover a few things about their surprise visitor and enlist Ron to help.