Chapter 4 - Palantír

A week after their first meeting the Dark Lord was again standing in the field where he had met his council. He was preparing for their arrival, which should be any moment.

First, Voldemort created an invisibility area that would conceal the Death Eaters and himself while they talked. Then, he cast a very strong Illusion Charm that would make anyone affected by it believe they were in a small cabin, sitting on chairs around a table, while they were really just standing inside the invisibility area. It was the same combination of spells Voldemort had used last time; he had found them particularly useful as the illusion spell could not be detected and would only affect who Voldemort wanted it to.

Voldemort entered his own illusion and sat down at the head of the table. He had ordered his Death Eaters to meet him again because, with Snape's information, he could finally put his plans in to motion.

Seconds later several cloaked figures entered the room; the illusion activated when they spoke his password: 'Mordsmordre'. When everyone had taken their bows and their seat two seats were left empty: that of Macnair, who had departed to Central Asia to find the giants, and that of Morgan, who was had reported to Voldemort the day before and was now executing his plans to gain the dementor's support. That left Malfoy, who had been with Voldemort from the beginning of his rise to power, DeWitt, a friendly and jovial man to the outside world, but secretly as vicious as any of Voldemorts followers, Avery, who was too slow-witted to be really powerful, but very loyal. Then there was Nott, who was quite good with a wand, but had never had an original thought in his live, and Ulyanov, the oldest of Voldemort's Death Eaters; a Russian who had had to flee his country after massacring dozens of wizards and muggles at a Magic- and Non-magic Peoples Cooperation Conference. Lastly at the far end of the table across Avery sat Gravely, a surly individual of whom even Voldemort didn't know the entire story of his live.

Apart from the two empty seats the room was exactly the same as the week before. Voldemort sat tapping his long skeletal fingers together. On the table in front of him stood a rather large wooden box, carved with simple geometric figures.

Every one of the Death Eaters was looking at Voldemort intently, waiting for him to speak. Voldemort decided to start with the most important, and leave other issues for later. He began: "Now that I have some more information about the plans of my enemy -" he nodded slightly at DeWitt, who had arranged the meeting with Snape - "I have decided it is safe enough to secretly start to execute some of my plans. There is one thing in particular that I absolutely must obtain if we are ever to defeat our weak-willed enemies."

The Death Eaters looked at him curiously, but remained quiet, so he continued: "You might want to know why I haven't tried to get such a powerful tool before. The fact is that I only learned of it this year. You'll remember I told you that Barty Crouch was at Hogwarts to deliver me Harry Potter – he is dead, by the way, but then I didn't really expect him to survive his mission. What most of you probably do not know is that he impersonated this year's Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, who we managed to capture over a year ago: Alastor Moody." All the Death Eaters looked surprised, except Malfoy, who had apparently guessed as much, having heard about Moody being at Hogwarts from his son. The surprise was quickly followed by angry mumbles and scoffs, as Moody had been responsible for the deaths or capture of many of their fellow Death Eaters. Nott even mumbled: "Serves him well!"

Voldemort said: "You can imagine what a wealth of information I could have extracted from Moody. Unfortunately, I did not have my full power then, and Moody turned out to be very well prepared. It took an Imperiatus curse, hours of torture, three Truth charms and my best legilimency to get something out of him, and even then there was only one thing he would let slip – apparently he didn't think it was very important, or else he would have found a way to keep it from me. Of course," he said, his gleaming eyes sweeping over the Death Eaters, "I was disappointed that none of my Death Eaters had ever seen fit to tell me this. He told me there was a room in the Department of Mysteries where all important divinations are kept, that in that room there was a shelve, and that on that shelve was the full record of a prophecy concerning me and," he said with a scowl, "Harry Potter."

"Over thirteen years ago I was told such a prophecy had been made. I was told a boy would be born to parents that had stood against me – and lived – three times, that this boy was to defeat me if I didn't kill him first. As you all know, this information turned out to be wrong," Voldemort said looking at Gravely. He was the one who had gotten the faulty information from an informant and told his master. Voldemort had thought about punishing him for this, but decided against it. He had better things to do.

Voldemort continued the story, because not all the Death Eaters knew the full of it. "I killed the boy's father and his mother effortlessly, and tried to dispatch the boy. But while the most powerful wizards died instantly at the flick of my wand, this boy survived, and the curse rebounded on me. I discovered later that he was protected by a strong magical tie with his mother, who had sacrificed her life for him. It was foolish of me to oversee it, I admit that… I suffered greatly for it."

The Dark Lord gave his council members a menacing look. A few of them shuddered slightly. They knew their master had not forgiven them for failing to find him.

After a slight pause Voldemort continued: "I had more than ten years to think about what happened before I saw Harry Potter again. How could I have been brought down by a pathetic little boy and his mudblood mother? Then, in his first year at Hogwarts, Harry Potter stopped me from getting the Philosopher's Stone – still protected by his mother's sacrifice – and two weeks ago he escaped me again. How could this be possible?"

None of the Death Eaters was going to answer the rhetorical question, so Voldemort said: "I realized that the answer to this question could be more important than anything. And after I questioned Moody I know where to find the answer. There is only one way to find out what really was prophesised – save capturing and questioning Albus Dumbledore – and that is to go into the Ministry of Magic and to take the only existing record of the prophecy."

Voldemort looked around, fixing his eyes on each of the Death Eaters in turn. MacNair might have been best suited to find out more about the prophecy – being a Ministry official – but as he was somewhere in Nepal the last time the Dark Lord had heard from him he would have to delegate the task to someone else. He considered it for a moment, and then said: "Avery. I want you to find out how to get to the prophecy. All I know is that it is kept in the Department of Mysteries. Malfoy can get you into the Ministry if you need to."

Avery looked absolutely shocked at the thought of having to do this. "But – but master," he sputtered. "The Department of Mysteries! How am I supposed to find out what's going on in that place?" When he realised what he had said he looked even more shocked in fear of his master's reaction.

"I would have thought, Avery, that I had sufficiently impressed upon you the importance of this prophecy," Voldemort hissed. Avery nodded shakily. "Then you also know what will happen when you don't come up with something to get it for me," said Voldemort cruelly.

Avery muttered something incoherent. Then he got a grip on himself and said: "I will do everything I can, My Lord."

"I know you will, Avery," Voldemort concluded the issue. "Now, the next order of business. I have decided we need a better way to communicate. Any conventional magical communication may be discovered by our enemies, so I have created… this."

Voldemort opened the box that had been standing on the table in front of him. He tilted it a bit, so that the others could see what was inside it. The box was filled with small globes that appeared to be made of some kind of glass or crystal.

Voldemort smiled. He was quite proud of his new invention. He had to wait for Wormtail to get him supplies before he could start to work on them, and it had taken him days to make them – not all that long in the magic world, but he was not a very patient wizard, and what took mere mortals years to achieve usually only cost the Dark Lord a few hours. The globes were like crystal balls, but they were small enough to fit into the palm of one's hand. They were filled with a filthy brown-green smoke that formed into a grinning skeleton if you held the ball still long enough, then dissolved again when you moved it.

Voldemort raised his hand, and six of the balls lifted out of the box and flew into the waiting hands of the Death Eaters. Voldemort said: "You will keep it with you at al times. You can use it to contact me at any time, but only if I allow it. This one," he removed a seemingly identical ball from his robes, "allows me to see through each of yours whenever I wish it."

Crystal balls were usually only used in divination, but these were rare and powerful magical items that Voldemort had enchanted with a strong Protean charm and a touch of his own personal magic. He had actually gotten the idea to use crystal balls as a communication device from a muggle book he had read when he was young – not that he was usually inclined to take ideas from muggle books, but he thought this was a rather useful one.

Voldemort bared his fangs in a small smile as he looked around the table. "Let's try it out, shall we?" He said. He placed his ball on the table in front of him, waited for the Dark Mark to form, and put his hand on it.

Immediately the balls in the hands of the Death Eaters seemed to burst as the greenish smoke billowed from it, materializing into the shape of the Dark Lord's head. The smoke changed colour, so that six red-eyed, pale, snakelike faces hovered in the cabin, one over each of the crystal balls, staring at the Death Eater holding it.

"A beautiful piece of work, isn't it?" Voldemort asked, and the room filled with his high-pitched voice as the words flowed from seven different mouths, each face copying Voldemort's expression exactly. The Death Eaters seemed quite impressed, even though they had seen many displays of their master's power. "It is, My Lord," they chorused.

Voldemort removed his hand from the ball, and in a swirl of smoke the faces retreated into their collective containers. He pocketed his ball and told the others to do the same. Voldemort sighed. With all important business taken care of it took more than two hours before all his followers had related how they had been working to achieve his second rise to greatness. When they were done he declared the meeting over and returned to his Transsylvanian hiding place.

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