Disclaimer: Whoo boy. Sarah is my own creation. But that's about it. I own nothing.

AN: THE STORY IS NOT DEAD! Thanks to my friend PotterSister for being so stubborn and eventually provoking me into continuing this. I love writing it.

Chapter 4: The Death Eaters

Lord Voldemort made sure that Sarah was still sleeping before he dragged Wormtail out of the house.

"My Lord," the minion whimpered. "W-where are we g-going?"

The Dark Lord silenced him with a sharp glare. He walked on, his hand brushing a tree as he passed it.

PFSHHHH!

Lord Voldemort snapped around, scanning the woods behind him intently, but nothing could be seen. Wormtail whimpered again, but said nothing.

The dark wizard turned and walked on. Several minutes later he heard another loud hiss. He turned around once again to see a branch that he had shoved out of his way a few moments before. It was surrounded in a strange mist.

"Who's there?" he demanded.

Sarah poked her head out from behind a tree. She held what appeared to be a damp sponge in one hand and a can of disinfectant in the other.

"Hey, Volders!" she cheered. Lord Voldemort blinked. This girl had been living with him for a week and he had yet to get used to her outbursts.

"What are you doing here?" he asked wearily. How had she found him? Was the question he was more eager to ask, but he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the answer.

"Cleaning," she said simply, dutifully scrubbing a tree branch as though to prove her point. Lord Voldemort twitched.

"And why are you cleaning?" he insisted.

"Because you were busy." He withheld a frustrated sigh. Sarah was not one to speak clearly.

"And what is it that you needed?" Her face lit up and she pulled a curled piece of paper and a pen from her back pocket.

"I needed help with the crossword," she explained. "What's a twelve letter word for annoying? It's got an 'f' and an 'a'…"

"Insufferable." Sarah counted the white boxes on her sheet of paper.

"YES!" she cheered, jotting down the answer.

"Is that all?" the dark wizard asked.

"Not quite. I need help with this one…and this one…and this…" Lord Voldemort finally gave into temptation and rolled his eyes. He jerked his head for her to follow him and began walking again.

"A four letter word meaning 'to satisfy'" she read off.

"Sake."

Lord Voldemort seriously considered postponing his meeting. After helping Sarah finish her crossword, he had insisted, threatened, even bribed her to go back to the house and wait. But the girl was not to be swayed, and she had followed him all the way to the graveyard, now singing something about a green tambourine. He inwardly chastised himself. Of course she would have come after him: that stupid crossword was one of her little 'rituals', despite her utter inability to solve them on her own. She had, over the last week, finally worn him to the point of submission, when he finally agreed to help her figure out the foolish riddles. He thought it was utterly ridiculous. Though not nearly as idiotic as the notion of a great and feared wizard like himself, being seen by his minions in such a compromising situation. But they had already been summoned, and it would be impossible for him to stop them now. He would simply have to hope that Sarah wouldn't start any kind of mutiny. Or at least trust that he would be able to quell it if she did.

A quarter hour later, they started arriving at the graveyard. Lord Voldemort had desperately tried explaining the situation to Sarah (though he punctuated every sentence with 'so go home') and had managed to get her to admit to trying to behave.

This was a definite step in the right direction.

The girl was not even slightly phased by the blank masks and black robes Lord Voldemort's minions wore. In fact, she seemed rather…pleased.

"Hi!" Sarah squealed, running up to one of the Death Eaters. "Will you be my special friend?" The Death Eater tore off his mask, and Voldemort could only barely stop himself from laughing. The minion, Lucius Malfoy, was wearing an expression of confusion and shock and surprise, all of the emotions constantly churning on his face.

"What—who are you?" he flustered. Even his voice was a flustered combination of surprise and confusion. Sarah blinked innocently.

"I'm Sarah. Your new special friend!" she hugged him suddenly, provoking a girlish squeal of shock from Malfoy.

"Get off me!" he shouted, throwing Sarah violently away from him. The girl landed, unharmed, a few feet away, where she was temporarily immobilized by a fit of giggles. The flustered Death Eater pulled out his wand, his expression now decidedly angry. "Aveda—"

"EXPELIARMUS!" Malfoy's wand flew out of his grip with a snap and landed in his master's spidery white fingers. "I suggest you not try that again," Voldemort hissed darkly, aiming his own wand at Malfoy's heart. The moment was interrupted by a series of popping noises as several other Death Eaters arrived in succession at the scene.

"Yippee!" Sarah shouted. "More special friends!" The new arrivals only stared at her in confusion.

"Sarah," Voldemort said, pulling a small bag of money out of his robe pocket. "Go…buy something. You needed a set of nightclothes. Get some. And take your time about it." He tossed the bag to Sarah, who suddenly looked like Christmas had come early.

"Thank you, Voldemort," she sang before darting off.

She returned two hours later, when the meeting was nearly adjourned. She carried with her two rather large shopping bags and wore a wide grin. Seeing Lord Voldemort glower at her, she nodded obviously and winked.

"I gotcha. I'll be waaaay over here if you need me," she laughed, seating herself comfortably in the lap of an angelic statue. She pulled something out of her shopping bags and started working intently on it, all the while humming something that sounded suspiciously like 'Kumbaya'.

"Er…My Lord…" one of the Death Eaters mumbled, ignoring her as he inched forward. "Er…there is something I believe you would want to see…"

"What is it?" Voldemort growled. The Death Eater meekly held up a recent copy of the Daily Prophet. One of the articles, a letter to the editor, was circled in red.

"This…" Voldemort snatched the paper and scanned the article. Unbelieving, he read it again, and finally a third time, struggling to understand what he was looking at.

The article read:

The following has been submitted to the Daily Prophet a week ago. Whether it was meant as a sick joke or in sincerity is uncertain, but for the benefit of the public (as well as whatever humor it might bring), it has been decided that the letter will be published.

Dear Editor, it read.

I am pretty disturbed by the bias I have found in your paper. I was first alerted to said bias when I read the headline of one of your story, "He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named Returns." The title in itself shows a severe degree of degradation. I mean, it's one thing to call somebody names—I have nicknames for my friends—but to take away their name entirely! I just don't think it's right. Honestly, I bet you don't even know Censored. In fact, I'd be willing to bet a ton that you've never even bothered interviewing the guy! And do you even check to make sure your stories are accurate? And are you aware that spreading this news without getting both sides of a story is libel? I swear, Censored can be a little rough around the edges, but he's not such a bad guy. In fact, I'm sure he'd be a regular saint if he just had more fiber in his diet (I've seen the kind of stuff he eats. Do you know that because of the things published in your paper, he's not allowed in most restaurants?).

I must make it clear that I find it morally wrong to judge someone before you get to know them. And even if Censored did do all the stuff you keep accusing him of, I honestly couldn't blame him. The way you guys keep talking about him, even Mother Theresa would probably snap (it's called a self fulfilling prophesy: you expect someone to do something bad so much that they finally freak out and actually do it.) Just keep this in mind, and please, think before you publish. And always eat your fiber.

Sincerely,

Concerned Buddy of My Friend Censored

A return address was included, and investigations are being performed as to the whereabouts of 'Concerned Buddy.'

Voldemort looked up at Sarah, who was still sitting cross-legged in the statue's lap.

"Sarah," he said dryly. The girl looked up and put down what she was playing with. In one motion she was on her feet.

"Yup!" she shouted. Most of the Death Eaters cringed at the sudden noise.

"Did you write to the Daily Prophet?" he said, holding up the paper.

"'Course I did, Volders," Sarah laughed. All of his minions looked shocked now, except for Peter Petigrew, who was more than used to such behavior by now. "I'm surprised you didn't by now. Honestly, that stuff they were writing about you was just awful!"

"I see," Voldemort said, resisting the urge to massage his temples. "And you included an address?"

"Oh that," Sarah snickered. "They should have a lot of fun with that…"

"Which address did you give them, pray tell?"

"My stepdad's," she shrugged. Voldemort rolled his eyes, then paused.

"Fiber?" he asked.

"I've been telling you for ages now, but you just won't listen. So I had to get the message across somehow." The wizard swallowed.

"The national newspaper?"

"Yup!" the girl smiled broadly.

"Er…Lord Voldemort," Wormtail blundered. "If you wanted more fiber, I could simply—"

"I DO NOT WANT MORE FIBER!"

"Oh, calm down, Volders," Sarah said comfortingly, pulling a large box out of a plastic shopping bag. "I brought Wheaties!" Voldemort glared at her for a minute, then turned back to his minions.

"Dismissed!" he seethed, glaring at each of them as they dissaparated.

The last to go was Lucious Malfoy.

"Hey, wait! Special friend!" Sarah called out, rushing to his side. The man tried desperately to dissaparate, but she grabbed him first. "You forgot something!" she pushed a thin object into his hands and backed away with a broad grin. Lucious Malfoy stared down at what he realized was her project with horror.

It was his white Deatheater's mask.

Or, at least, it had been white.

It was now bright pink and blue and yellow, and covered with sequins and glitter.