~A/N I cherish reviews, thank you.
I played with the cyanide tooth in my head. To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream...ay, there's the rub... The rub indeed. Would I still be welcome in heaven? Once I could have answered definitively- but now, after I had accepted so much death, now that iIsee casualties as numbers and not lives... Now I was no longer so sure. My tongue left the tooth for a later perusal.
I walked blindly behind her through dark stone halls with filthy floors. I had no shoes on and the detritus insinuated itself in the myriad of sores under my feet. She had a stride bespeaking confidence and power, and I in my wretched state, struggled to match it.
Wet-wool made a sharp left and I saw more wrought iron doors that were eerily similar to mine. I wondered how many of us were here- who I would find if only I had the power to blast down this door. Or the next one. People I believed long dead? I hoped not. I sent a fervent prayer to my sleeping God that they were all killed and rotting in the graves.
I did not bother making a plan to fool Lord Voldemort. It was superfluous. All the plans I could ever create in this short span of time would be decimated upon his first visit with my battered neurons. And should he visit them, should he try to see the plans of the African resistance that lay inside my skull- well, the tooth was there for a reason. But now was not the time to think of that.
Instead, I tried to assemble the bare scraps of information I had into a plausible scenario. A group of mudblood researchers working for Voldemort was ludicrous and I discarded it immediately.
Voldemort couldn't trust his own followers to do a simple task competently, never-mind an enemy who had nothing to gain by helping him. I don't even think there is an item. I mean, what item could he possibly have need of?
He had immortality, admittedly at the cost of his looks, but immortality nonetheless. He had power- in Great Britain assuredly and most of the Continent, excepting the East Bloc.
I did also hear he was struggling with North America and Africa, but we had all known it was just a matter of time.
There was of course the old standby that somewhere out in the world there was a magical shoelace or something equally ridiculous that would make you into the most powerful wizard in the world. Always a possibility.
The thought crossed my mind that maybe this was all some sort of twisted game, but no, I discarded this idea too. Such an elaborate ruse is pointless, Voldemort had nothing to gain.
And if the 'quest' objective was a ruse, then why lie to me? It is not as if I am in a position to object to whatever it is.
This whole thing was irrational, and it scared me, because it meant I was missing an essential piece of
information . I was walking into this blind with nothing but my wits to get me out alive.
And then I halted as Wet-wool came to a sudden stop, my nose scant centimeters from her silk clad shoulder. We were at a threshold of black-veined eggshell marble. A set of dark stained wood doors loomed over us. Chubby gold cupid door knockers distracted me from my plight with their incongruous hilarity.
Wet-wool turned to me, "You will keep your eyes lowered and your hands in plain sight at all times. Exercise stupidity at your own risk." I nodded dumbly, but she had already turned back and taken a deep breath.
As she raised her arm to the knocker I noticed that it was unblemished. So that's why a Pureblood was checking on prisoners. She was a greenhorn, a new recruit.
The doors opened, seemingly of their own accord, but I had long ago ceased to be impressed with such things. What I was impressed with was the sheer size and scope of the chamber we entered.
With its spacious interior, magnificent ceiling, and ensconced walls, it reminded me of a desecrated cathedral. In fact, I was sure of it. one could still detect the paler square of marble where a tabernacle once stood. Was nothing sacred?
The world had changed. Wine had turned into water, and water to blood, still thick and hot and red and raping anything clean and unsullied until it cried out. Death Eaters stood in clusters where pews should been, and on a raised dais, a jet throne supplanted the altar.
I had no wish to look upon that throne. No wish. Wet-wool proceeded to the center of the room, and faced the throne. I huddled behind her in an entirely useless campaign to remain unnoticed.
On bended knee, Wet-wool waited for permission to speak.
."Betras. Speak and be heard."
So many times I have heard his voice described as 'high and cold', and often wondered what exactly that meant, what it sounded like.
Betras, huh? I think I preferred Wet-wool.
I understood now that the description was accurate, but misleading. It was more like his voice was too powerful to come out all at once, so when words did leave his lips, they had extreme force behind them, like shaking a bottle of soda pop, and only allowing the bottle to be open a little at a time. It was a horrible voice.
I had to make my move now, I knew. I had to catch him off guard and keep him from prowling inside my mind. With that thought firmly in mind, i did the unthinkable. Straightening my frame, I side-stepped Betras to take the place of prominence en face de the throne. Looking him directly in the eye, I spoke to Tom Marvolo Riddle for the first time in fifty odd years.
"Hello, Tom. Long time, no see."