Chapter 35: The Throne Room

Midnight in the dank darkness, deep inside the cavern complex carved out by Voldemort and his followers.

Walking in the dimly-torchlit stone corridors, Hannibal Lecter smiled as he felt the first fine fingers of morphine threading through his system. The timed-release painkiller packs under the skin of his forearm had discharged the last of their doses. For the next two hours, he would be able to function at a level he judged to be acceptable.

It would be enough.

It was amazing how easily they, meaning he and Sirius Black, had managed to penetrate Voldemort's unholy of unholies. The Dark Lord had trusted almost solely to the use of magical concealment, and had therefore not bothered to set up more than a perfunctory guard network -- a network that Clarice, in her passage, had by and large eliminated. As for the warding and warning spells, there was no indication that they had been triggered at all. Apparently, being an Anti-Magus meant that, as far as magical detection spells were concerned, Dr. Lecter didn't exist.

Fascinating. He would have loved discussing this with Albus, but, alas, such was not to be.

Still walking with his usual light strides, his body as erect as a dancer's, Dr. Lecter held one of the two wands he had made for him by the Weasley twins. He smiled as the faint aroma of wand varnish, lavender and rose with just the faintest suggestion of civet, made its way almost coquettishly into his nostrils.

Both wands looked to be typical of the type favored by skilled Transfigurationists: twelve inches long and mahogany, with a matte finish. But closer inspection would reveal that each wand had a series of small buttons, flush with the wand's surface, arranged in rows running nearly the length of each wand.

Each of these buttons was connected to a spell, stored deep in the wand's dragon-heartstring core. And each of those spells was as strong as Fred and George Weasley could make it.

Shouts and alarums down the corridor behind him: Lucius Malfoy's corpse had been discovered. Dr. Lecter saw no reason to quicken his pace.

The noises drew nearer, a cacaphony of leather-shod feet and raised voices. They had just spotted him.

He didn't bother to look. His pulse remained at its usual seventy-four beats per minute.

First they called out "Stupefy!", and Dr. Lecter felt the rushing of energy directed towards him, saw the torchlight flicker behind him as the spells flew past the flames. He heard several gasps as his attackers watched their Stunning Spells dissipate harmlessly bare inches from his back.

Someone, a female Death Eater who Dr. Lecter judged to have a light soprano voice that was cracking from misuse, shouted "Crucio!" in what she must have hoped was a powerfully loud bellow. The spell slammed into Dr. Lecter's aura and vanished without a trace, causing its caster to shriek in frustration.

Ever the cheerful gentleman, Dr. Lecter started whistling the first of Bach's Goldberg Variations and continued on his way, pulse still at seventy-four.

A male wizard's scream of rage, melded with more than a little fear, reached his ears:

"Avada Kedavra!"

The green glow of the Killing Curse filled the corridor, outshining the torches for a brief moment. And then, it, too, was sucked inexorably into the magical black hole that was Hannibal Lecter.

Dr. Lecter judged it advisable at that point to turn around. A faint smile played on his lips as he tapped them with his wand.

Out of respect for Fred and George's sensibilities, he had not asked the Weasley twins to load any of the Unforgivables into either of his wands. There were many spells that would serve his purposes equally well, and he was about to release one of them, one that had no counterspell.

"Engorgio in perpetuuis," murmured the doctor, pointing the wand whilst discreetly pressing a button.

A flash of red energy shot from the tip, surrounding its target.

The male Death Eater directly in front of Dr. Lecter suddenly -- and, to judge from his vocalizations, rather painfully -- swelled to a grotesque size, filling the corridor with his bulk. His face, now the size of an oil drum lid, contorted in red agony. His screams would have frozen the blood of any normal human, wizard or Muggle.

But, of course, Dr. Lecter was most emphatically not a normal human.

Pulse still seventy-five.

The Death Eater's comrades would either have to Apparate around their inflated fellow, or hack their way through him, because the nature of the charm meant that he would be spending the rest of a painful and short life lodged irretrievably in that portion of the hallway. Dr. Lecter knew that all Death Eaters could Apparate -- it was required of them before they took the Dark Mark -- but he wanted to see whether or not any anti-Apparition charms existed anywhere in Voldemort's lair.

And besides, he was a whimsical person.

He turned his back on the engorged man and resumed his stroll down the corridor.



Peter Pettigrew's nostrils twitched nervously, as if he were wearing invisible whiskers, and despite the warmth of the torches, he shivered slightly as he stood, in his human form, outside the gleaming ebony door to Voldemort's throne room. The Dark Lord had made a very big gamble, but the longer they waited without hearing from their opponents, the less likely it was that the gamble was going to pay off.

On the one hand, Peter found it hard to believe that the Ministry, even with -- or especially with -- Dumbledore pulling Arthur Weasley's strings behind the scenes, would go so far as to allow the Muggle hostages to be killed rather than agree to any of the Dark Lord's terms. On the other hand, he couldn't see Dumbledore simply giving in to anything Voldemort would want. It was a predicament.

Sounds of running from the south corridor.

Peter looked up, saw Nicodemus Nott and Reginald Avery, their faces white with shock.

"Wormtail! The Muggles are gone! And Malfoy is dead!"

"What?!?" cried Peter. "Show me!"

"T-this way," Nott replied stutteringly, and made to go back down the way he had come with Avery. Suddenly he stopped. "Shouldn't we tell the Dark Lord?" Nott asked.

"Not yet," replied Peter, a good deal more confidently than he felt at the moment. "Come on, hurry!" he said, and both Nott and Avery were soon racing ahead of him, back down the south corridor.

If the Muggles were really gone, Peter thought as he ran, the jig was indeed up, and Voldemort would take out his fury on the fool unwise or unlucky enough to be the bearer of bad news. Best to make his escape now, while he could... but how to get rid of these two oafs?

They rounded a corner, Nott and Avery well ahead. Wormtail let them get a little farther ahead, then pulled out his wand.

"Avada Kedavra," he muttered to their backs, pointing his wand at them. The familiar green flash erupted from his wand, rushing to envelop Nott and Avery. They died where they stood, falling silently to the floor.

"A pretty little trick," said a rich, cultured voice behind him. "But I know a better one."

Peter rounded on the voice, his wand upraised. "Avada Kedavra!" he said yet again, this time a touch more forcefully.

The green rush of death sped towards the stranger, making a direct hit.

And did nothing.

Peter made a small noise at the back of his throat that could have best been described as a whimper. He then did what he usually did when he wanted to evade pursuit: he changed into a rat. With luck, the intruder wizard wouldn't notice him scampering away.

But luck was not on Peter Pettigrew's side that night.

"Stupefy!" he heard the stranger say, and then felt the unshakable tendrils of a particularly strong Stunning Charm. And then he knew no more.

The stranger walked to where Peter, in rat form, lay unconscious by the wall.

He pulled a glass jar, with holes in the lid, from one of the pockets of his jacket, and slid the Stunned Wormtail inside. The jar was fitted with an Unbreakable Charm, cast by Hermione Granger herself, when some months ago during a dinner party she was asked by the man she knew only as Dr. Marcus Reader to demonstrate how she captured that nosy reporter for the Daily Prophet.

"That should hold you until Dumbledore gets here," said Dr. Lecter as he screwed the lid on tight. He then returned the jar to his jacket pocket and resumed walking down the corridor, in the direction from which Wormtail, Nott and Avery had come.



Voldemort sat on his ivory-white throne, the arms shiny from the nervous motions of his hands, and watched the crowd of his assembled followers.

They tried to conceal it, at least when they were in his immediate presence, but he could tell that they were nervous. It was a very big gamble, and the longer they waited for word, the less chance there was of the gamble's succeeding.

Everyone in the room knew that, including Voldemort. Especially Voldemort.

His ivory-white face tightened even more than usual. He had to force his opponents' hands.

Fortunately, he knew just what to do.

"Mr. Crabbe," he said softly, beckoning with the slightest motion of his bony finger towards one of the more unsavory of his followers. "Bring two of the hostages to me. It's time we had some sport."

"As you wish, master," responded Crabbe, a particularly cruel smile blossoming on his face. He turned away and jogged towards the door.

Crabbe got about three steps before the smile fell from his face.

His jet-black hair gleaming in the torchlight, Dr. Marcus Reader, the Muggle Magician, was standing in the doorway.



There was the briefest of pauses, a space in which the only sound in the chamber was of the faint crackling of burning torches.

Voldemort was the first to recover his equilibrium. "So," he said, in his calmest, most deceptively honeyed voice, "they've sent you to negotiate, Dr. Reader?"

"Oh, no, Mr. Riddle," replied Dr. Lecter, politely but firmly. "I'm not here to negotiate. I'm here to kill you."

Another slight pause ensued, while Dr. Lecter savored the effect his pronouncement was having on all and sundry.

"But of course, I can't possibly do that without first, as they say in American Muggle law enforcement, busting a few caps on your followers." He pointed his wand at Crabbe. "Putrefactio!"

A sickly gray-green light hit Crabbe's feet. He looked down at them, watched them start to liquefy before his eyes, emitting the most horrid stench as they did so.

"You -- you bloody bastard!" Crabbe screamed, pulling his wand out even as his newly footless body fell to its knees. "Avada Kedavra!" His comrades soon joined him in casting the Killing Curse, and suddenly there were dozens of green rays of death hurtling through the chamber, all aimed at the intruder.

Bathed in a corona of green light, Dr. Lecter smiled and nodded his appreciation. It really was quite pretty.

He noted with amusement that many of the rays weren't even hitting him, but bypassing him like water rushing over a stone, and hitting other Death Eaters. Five of them had already joined the fast-rotting Crabbe on the floor.

Dr. Lecter aimed his wand again. "Incendio ultimus!" he said, in a low but firm voice, moving his wand in front of him in a sideways pass.

White-hot flame spat out from his wand, enveloping the first rank of surviving Death Eaters, causing them to shriek like stabbed horses. By the time some of their quicker-thinking fellows attempted to use Flame-Freezing Charms, half of them had already been charred beyond saving.

By this time the chamber was now Chaos itself.

The Death Eaters were creatures of habit. Even though they had no discernible effect on the doctor, shouts of "Avada Kedavra!" still rang through the throne room, mingled with the screams of the dying, and the smell of burnt flesh reigned supreme.

"And now, for something completely different," announced Dr. Lecter, his pulse rate still seventy-four. "Gelidio ultimus!" he cried, moving his wand again in another side-to-side pass.

More blue-white rays issued from his wand, but this time they brought not extreme heat, but extreme cold. The remaining Death Eaters were frozen solid where they stood, turned into lifeless statues. Dr. Lecter casually knocked one over; it shattered on the stone floor, sending myriads of frozen flesh-shards flying about. Some of them landed on Lecter's suit; ever the tidy gentleman, he brushed them off before they had a chance to melt and stain the fabric.

And now there was no one left but Voldemort.

The Dark Lord had risen from his throne, consternation stamped on his masklike features. He was uttering a series of curses, in rapid succession, his wand unwaveringly pointed in Dr. Lecter's direction as an unending stream of energy poured forth from it. His eyes grew wider with each failed spell, gazing helplessly as the doctor walked slowly, casually, towards the throne.

A sudden shift in Voldemort's eyes, which Lecter noted. The doctor guessed correctly that the Dark Lord had decided to attempt to Apparate out of harm's way.

"I think not, Tom," said Dr. Lecter aloud. Before Voldemort could react, he had pulled out the second of his two wands and pointed both of them directly at the throne.

Twin rushes of energy, twin Holding Charms, designed to prevent their target from being able to Apparate. Voldemort could have blocked one of them, but not both. His last route of escape was now blocked.

Dr. Lecter had now closed to within grappling distance. Without so much as a backward glance, he tossed the wands over his shoulder; they clattered on the stone floor behind him, rolling to rest against the puddle of putrefaction that was once Crabbe.

Then, as Voldemort's disbelieving eyes watched the wands come to rest, Dr. Lecter, his other hand moving too fast for even the Dark Lord to see, brought the exquisitely-sharp blade of his Spyderco Harpy up to the former Tom Riddle's throat, and buried it there.

The blood fountained in time to Voldemort's heartbeat, and there was a surprisingly large bit of it. But, not being able to speak, he could not cast a healing spell on himself.

It took about five minutes for him to bleed to death. Dr. Lecter stood and watched, standing well back to preserve the neatness of his raiment.

When Voldemort had bled his last drop, Dr. Lecter pulled him from the throne. Pulse seventy-four.

He still had about an hour and forty-five minutes before the last of the morphine wore off. Should he wait until the Ministry personnel arrived? He thought not.

He carefully arranged the late Tom Riddle, Jnr.'s body so that it rested on its knees directly in front of the the throne, the head drawn down low enough to touch the floor in abject abasement. Dr. Lecter then alighted into the Seat Perilous, his feet propped up for comfort on the Riddle ottoman.

He pulled parchment and quill from his vest pockets, and, in his finest copperplate hand, wrote a note in ink that could be read only by Dumbledore himself. He then wrapped the note around the jar containing Peter Pettigrew, then replaced the jar in his jacket pocket.

He heard voices in the corridor: Dumbledore, the hostages safely retrieved, had wasted no time in ordering an assault on the complex. Very good.

Well, there's no need for me to hang around, he decided. Everything is well in hand.

And with that, he put the tip of the quill in his mouth and injected himself with enough hemlock to kill a battalion. He had just enough time to compose himself before the curtain of blackness fell upon him.

A last thought, as his mind went spinning off into that velvet dark: Clarice.