It was a summer like no one had ever experienced before. While London and the flatlands of Great Britain were warm and familiar, the highlands of Scotland were encased in eternal springtime. The trees swelled with buds but never leafed; the grass turned green but the nights remained cold. The townspeople of Inverness and Bellinghall, deep in the wilds of the Scottish Highlands, swore they saw snowflakes fall in May. But in late June, the skies cleared. The heat was suddenly on. The grass baked and died, burnt brown. The riverbeds lay dry and fully exposed. Children played in the mornings and late evenings when the sun was low and never got bitten by the usually vicious mosquitoes. They couldn't breed without water, which was becoming scarcer with each passing day. Wild animals turned up in the yards of the suburban and the urban, desperate for relief from the heat. Many deer and even a shameless black bear wandered into the center of Bellinghall and bathed in the cool granite fountain. It made Muggle as well as magical news.
Then one day, in mid-August, the skies turned black as night. Lightning forked across the purple-black clouds. The rain poured down in torrents. It came sideways, knocking the umbrellas inside-out of the people in the streets. It flooded the roads and fields and fell for a full day. The baking heat was replaced by a flash flood of water and cold.
No one could explain it. The reporters and weathermen in London had a field day; for a full week, it was all they could write about. Some meteorologists blamed an exceptionally strong Jetstream and convergence of high and low pressure. A few psychics claimed it was movement from the planets and their moons. The wizards and witches of Great Britain wondered if the Ministry of Magic was experimenting with the weather on a grand scale. Maybe they were trying to tame the weather in addition to the magical population.
Some of these theories were partially correct. The weather was indeed abnormal and deviant. But it wasn't to blame on natural causes.
When the weather had cleared and returned to typical August warmth and cloudlessness, most people forgot about the historic weather pattern and instead began to speak about returning to school and the imminent end of summer holiday.
But one man was responsible for the abnormal weather. He was as elusive as smoke, pale as snow, and had a heart colder than the deepest winter. He stood now in an old, abandoned plantation. Vines had broken though the glass window panes and spread along the walls. Doxies and red caps skulked in the dark green leaves of the vines, red eyes peering out suspiciously as the man walked slowly through the empty rooms and halls.
The house had been abandoned for the better part of thirty years. It had long since had its possessions sold off, and the remainders stolen, by family and strangers years ago. He halted in an empty room overlooking an abandoned cornfield, their skeletal stalks remaining in spite of the deserted state of the miniature manor.
A mother bird chirped at him, scolding his presence, sitting on top of her nest, built in the corner of a nearly-vacant bookshelf. The man gave a casual flick of his wand, and a jet of green light hissed across the room and struck the bird. She flinched, and then slumped in her nest, never to make another sound.
"That was rather cruel." A high-pitched voice intoned.
The man turned around, his mouth flattening deeper into a severe line. "You would have the audacity to tell me what is cruel and what is not?"
The other man stepped into the room soundlessly, his blood-red cape billowing out behind him. His dark blue eyes pierced into the other's without a hint of mercy, but rather, curiosity.
"Enough of your small talk, Mackenzie." The man said in an offhand, bored way. "Your fangs are showing."
Mackenzie Folsom chuckled once and stood in the shadow by the window, watery yellow sunlight streaming in through the grime. "What brings you here?"
The man stared at a large cracked mirror, his own reflection perfectly visible. His once-handsome face, which had charmed many people so effortlessly, was now pale and waxen, like he had suffered severe burns to his complexion. His dark eyes stared back at him, black and soulless as the pupils within Mackenzie's own eyes.
"You are growing sentimental, Tom." Mackenzie went on, staring down at the overgrown, wild lawn of the plantation. A lone red fox snuffled around in the grass, looking for something to eat.
His back was turned to him, but Voldemort set his jaw. "You know that is no longer my name." He said icily.
"I know, Voldemort." Mackenzie said, sounding amused. "You lost your former self long ago."
Voldemort was silent, moving through the room, past the dead mother, who would never be able to look after her own children. Whether unborn or newly hatched, Voldemort did not care or know.
"You know why I am here." Voldemort said at last. "I wanted to make sure it was safe."
"Ah, of course." Mackenzie replied thoughtfully. "It should be. No one has set foot in here for years. We have cast protections around it very well. Only Dumbledore could skirt around the defenses."
Voldemort picked up a very dusty textbook from the bookshelf, one of the few remaining tomes, and glanced at the title. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them – Newt Scamander. He opened the cover and froze at what he saw inside.
"What is it?" Mackenzie questioned. "Is it lost?"
Voldemort picked up the old photograph from the book curiously, as if it was a fossil or a gem. He stared at the dusty, age-faded picture, his long fingers brushing briefly over the face of his younger self, smiling handsomely. Next to him was Mackenzie Folsom, hardly aged more than he looked now. Both wore their Slytherin robes, a gleaming Head Boy badge on his own lapel along with his dead father's ring. His first two followers, Yaxley and Lestrange, grinned up next to him. A third – a woman – stood beside him, half-smiling, half-scowling, frowning at the boys every few seconds as if she couldn't really believe that she was meant to be in the picture too.
"Oh, look." Mackenzie said, bringing Voldemort's attention back to the present. "Isn't that it, right there?"
Voldemort put the photograph down on the bookshelf and followed Mackenzie's gaze. A small wooden box, covered in a thick layer of dust, sat on the mantle of a fireplace just feet from where he stood.
Wordlessly, he drew the box closer in his cold, white hands and brushed off the layers of gray dust with a long forefinger. In his other hand, he held his yew and phoenix feather wand. "Wasovia lacumtara."
The box gave a tiny click. He gently opened the lid, smiling wickedly in victory when it yielded to his touch.
Voldemort lifted a gleaming golden cup from its deep folds of purple velvet. It was small, wrought out of pure gold, with two fine handles. A badger was embossed in the center, a few precious gems and jewels glittering in the light of the chandelier.
"You have failed me, Folsom." Voldemort said quietly, examining the cup closely. Mackenzie gave a small inhale of fear.
"My Lord." Mackenzie said formally. "I would never, ever betray your trust. You know that since we were schoolchildren, my loyalty has always been to you and you alone. You are my-"
"Enough." Voldemort interrupted coldly, touching the embossed badger with a finger. "Keep your forked tongue behind your teeth."
Mackenzie was silent. Voldemort could smell his growing fear, as acrid and telling as smoke to a fire.
"Your mission was simple." Voldemort continued, listening to the tiny metallic click of the cup, like an irregular heartbeat. "You were to gather more followers. You were to increase the number of our Death Eaters."
"My Lord." Mackenzie said, sounding affronted. "I did what you asked. I have counted at least twenty young students who expressed interest, including a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff."
Voldemort laughed once, devoid of humor. "And you turned them down, I assume? Only those in the House of my ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, will be chosen from Hogwarts."
"Of course, my Lord." Mackenzie said. "But, forgive me, there is something you must know."
Voldemort rested the cup back in its bed of purple velvet, shutting the box gently and pushing it back on its lonely shelf. "What is it?" he said vaguely, already thinking of his locket, hidden deep inside of a sea cavern, miles and miles from here…
"It is… it is her." Mackenzie said in a voice filled with disdain and anger. "Dumbledore has replaced me with Willow Smith."
Voldemort picked up the old photograph again, staring down at each of the five in the picture. His own face, Mackenzie's, Yaxley, Lestrange, and Smith. A wicked smile spread slowly across his face as his mind filled with memories from his own time at school.
"He has made her the tutor of Amber." Mackenzie spat. "She runs around with four boys… they call themselves the Marauders."
"Yes, I am aware. You told me of these things." Voldemort said impatiently, still staring at the old photograph. "Interesting… I wonder, how it seems that Hogwarts harbors a group of five in every generation? Each group filled with a traitor…"
He heard Mackenzie swallow nervously. "I have always been loyal to you, my Lord."
But Voldemort wasn't listening. His dark gaze was pinpointed, like a sniper's gun, on Willow Smith's dubious face in the picture. "I wonder," Voldemort said slowly, "if Dumbledore is willing to hire a vampire… I wonder if he is also willing to hire a former Death Eater."
He put the photograph back on the shelf, turning from the room and sweeping down the stairs of the old, abandoned plantation. Folsom followed him hastily, straight through a beam of sunlight, without a trace of burning or pain.
"My Lord," he panted as they swept past two magnificent magnolia trees, "what makes you think she is a former Death Eater? What if she remains loyal to you?"
Voldemort paused by the edge of the property, turning his head slightly to listen for any sound of a follower. There was none.
"I think," Voldemort said quietly, "that once someone has chosen to follow me, there is no turning back. Once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater."
The two Disapparated with a loud crack. Silence reigned again over the abandoned plantation. Hours later, in the dark of night, crickets chirped, bats squeaked. A shadow swept across the grounds, long and cast heavy by the light of the nearly full moon.
A witch with a long scar running down her face emerged from behind a towering willow tree, the moonlight reflecting on her green eyes. A single black mark on her forearm burned slightly as she stared at the spot where the vampire and the Dark Lord had stood. Then, she turned and walked wordlessly into the plantation, the name of a spell already on her lips.