Disclaimer: I do not own any characters or ideas which you recognise as being from JK Rowling's Harry Potter series or any other trademarked or copyrighted work. The plot of this story is my own, but I have no intention of making any money from it.
Chapter 20
"I have found the answer," said Voldemort smugly. Hermione was rather surprised at his tone – over their past few weeks of golem-practice meetings she had become used to anger, haughtiness, and curiosity, but smugness was something new.
"My lord, please share your wisdom with me," she fawned.
"Are you familiar with the name Appolinus?"
As a matter of fact, Hermione was. He was a potioneer from the Early Roman period, famed for being Julius Ceasar's personal wizard, though Muggle history had long since forgotten him. It had been a rhetorical question, however, and the Dark Lord was now continuing in his lecture, oblivious to her. She had established that he rather liked the sound of his own voice (possibly a feature common to all dictators), and fulfilling the role of teacher seemed to give him some kind of perverse pleasure – knowing more than others, and being able to share only what he chose.
"It is of no consequence," he was saying. "It requires a scholarly mind and a greater intelligence than you possess in order to be interested in all facets of magic as I am. The fact remains, that Appolonius devised a way of extending his enchantments across all of Ceasar's legions, through using this mark."
He drew a simple pentacle in the sand, with a line stretching from the centre outwards towards each point of the star. "You will stand in the centre of this pentacle, and speak this chant as you use your wand to create my golems. The pentacle will channel and amplify your power, allowing them to move beyond your range of merely a few feet without losing their power. It will also give each golem greater strength, so that they will be able to use more complex spells than mere stunners. Here, stand."
Hermione stood in the centre of the circle. The parchment he had given her to read from seemed more a series of nonsense syllables than any spell she had ever heard of.
Carefully, she began her usual set of spells, her movements by now so practiced that she could do them without thinking. As she did so, Hermione read aloud.
Something new was happening. Rather than simply turning into men, each of her piles of sand to make a golem was swirling, whirling round in a miniature tornado, converging on the centre, until suddenly all was quiet. Voldemort stood in a circle of protection which he had drawn for himself. Hermione collapsed, panting in her pentacle, which was now glowing a bright green.
Two hundred and fifty identical golems stood, watching her, awaiting instructions.
"Good," said Lord Voldemort. "Now," he motioned to a flock of sheep which stood on the crest of a hill at the other end of the beach, grazing. "Tell them to kill the sheep."
Hermione only had to think the command, and the golems were already turning away, marching in an eerie formation towards the distant hillock. Clearly this pentacle was working – they were definitely further away than she had ever seen them now, and not one of the golems looked on the verge of collapsing back into the sand.
Hermione watched aghast as the first golem to come within range drew a wand from its sleeve, and cast aloud, "Avada Kedavra!"
A sheep fell dead.
Had that been in the orders? She supposed that a golem would choose the most expedient form of fulfilling its orders, and since it now had the power to cast a killing curse...
A hail of green rain began to fall on the sheep, as more and more of them began bleating and running in circles, seeing their comrades dying around them.
"Step outside the pentacle, Helena," commanded Lord Voldemort. She'd almost forgotten that he was there, in the wonder and horror of her creations' autonomy.
"But my lord, the golems will collapse!"
"Are you questoning my orders?"
Hermione stepped outside the diagram, which vanished, leaving only a faint green smoke rising up from the sand.
But the golems did not vanish. They continued killing sheep, one by one. It was a horrible sight. They were now standing among the remains of the flock, so the most expedient way to kill a sheep was to literally rip it apart.
"Why haven't they stopped?" whispered Hermione, shocked and disgusted, her voice betraying her.
Not that Voldemort noticed. He was too filled with childish glee. "They will not stop now, until they have fulfilled their purpose and every sheep is dead. The pentacle bound the magic to the sand, so that even if I were to kill you right now, the golems would continue to do their work. They live only to fulfil that one destiny."
He seemed only to be pleased by this hideous prospect.
Hermione was nodding and smiling, and muttering, with "My Lord"s liberally interspersed in the nonsense as she knelt on the sand.
"You, Helena, will be the greatest of my Death Eaters. You have heard me speak of my plans for election night?"
Hermione thought she knew where this was going, and she didn't like it one bit. "My lord, my lord, I live to serve."
"Yessss," he hissed. "Helena, on that night I will gather all the Death Eaters to hear me announce the Dawn of a New age, with me as supreme ruler of Muggles and Wizards both!"
"My lord!"
"Yes. Lucius will have won control of the Muggle hordes. We will cement that control through fear! He will be the figurehead for other Muggle governments, so that they cannot interfere with my plans for Britain! Once I have finished my speech on that night, we shall herald the might of my new world, together!
"You will unveil this Golem Death Eater Army, and all golems will be enchanted with but one command – to kill all Muggles in their path! And we shall wreak bloodshed across London... those poor, stupid creatures will have no choice but to fall in to line, once we have destroyed their capital! 60 million Muggles, all as slaves to Wizards!"
"Oh, my Lord, your plan is great," said Hermione, burying her feelings deep in her mind, behind layers of Occlumency. "They shall finally be put in their place!"
He motioned to her. "Arise, my daughter. Two weeks hence, on the sixth of June, your golems will herald the dawning of a new age. The age of Lord Voldemort."