It was chaos. Nagini was dead; Neville had killed her. That was the last was it not? The journal: destroyed years ago, the cup: Ron took care of it, the diadem: lost in the Fiendfire. The locket was destroyed months ago according to Hermione, the ring had been done in quite some time before and Nagini was the last. The last one Voldemort had consciously created. Harry was really the last, but he was already gone. Voldemort was a single soul now. He could be killed.
Death Eaters and defenders were at one another's throats. Voldemort's plan to crush everyone's spirits had backfired. On the contrary, it had inspired a fresh surge of fighting. Hagrid had apparently met the band of Death Eaters and had been made to carry the corpse but in all the confusion, Ana had lost sight of everything, even Harry.
And now, here they were: Fabiana Prewett and the Dark Lord, standing a few mere yards from one another. He stopped and simply looked at her. The halting of Voldemort had stopped his followers, which stopped the defenders and before long everyone had eyes on the two of them. She slowly turned and faced the man who would most likely end her life in only a few short moments, wand at the ready.
He laughed, coldly and fully. "My dear, dear girl," he said. "I have no intention of killing you."
Ana cast an untrusting look his way and raised her wand some. Voldemort raised his chin and smiled, showing his sharpened teeth. "Ah yes, now I remember." He reached beneath his robes and pulled out a glass vial on a chord about the Dark Lord's neck. Inside the vial was a silver swirling light. "Know what this is? Of course, not, you were an infant when I ordered your home under siege and asked dear Lucius to bring me this. It's your voice." Voldemort shifted his gaze to the vial as Ana's mouth hung open in shock. "Yes. I listen to it sometimes when I'm lonely. It's has grown with you, you see. And by now…you sound so very much like your mother. When the average whore won't satisfy, just hearing your voice in my ear brings about a certain…peace." Voldemort looked at the vial now and sighed. "Alas, the calm never lasts. If I just let this sample of sound run free you see, it will find a host for a time before disappearing altogether. I can only listen to a tiny thread escaping from a lightly loosened cork…"
He looked back to Ana now, who was barely controlling the revolted look on her face as her spine shivered from the bottom up and back again, repeatedly. "You look so like her you know. In fact, the likeness is so uncanny, I think I would like to hear you plead for your life. It will soothe me to remind me of when your mother did the same. Who knows, maybe I'll even spare you in the same way I spared her."
Voldemort unstopped the vial and the silver light drifted up and out, hanging in a cloud before the Dark Lord's face. He blew gently and the mystical stuff floated through the air and collected at Ana's throat. It pulsed with a blinding light before dissipating and cooling her vocal chords, before this small tickle in her throat and the sense that she could open her mouth and somehow expel sound overtook her; something Ana thought she would never feel her whole life through.
"Come now," Voldemort cooed at her. "Sing for me."
It was there, something in the base of her throat. Ana didn't know how she knew how to expel this newfound power within her, but it came all the same. "You…you never spared her. You made sure she would get chucked in prison where she suffered and died addled and alone." Voldemort smiled again. It was all coming out now. The floodgates had opened and now there was no stopping the constant stream of accusations, facts really, from pouring out of her. And that was what he wanted before ending her, Ana was certain.
"You killed my father, my uncle, effectively my mother, probably my grandparents, and now my cousin! You and your cronies! You've murdered the only person who ever truly understood me! Every misfortune in my life has been because of you! I kill you where you stand!"
"Go ahead," Voldemort sighed before swooping toward her on a cloud of ashen smoke. Ana set her jaw and stood her ground. Voldemort laid her hand on hers which held her wand and lifted it until the tip rested on his jugular. "Prove to me you're strong enough. I may even find a place for you in my new world order. I have missed your mother so during this second life of mine. It's just not the same without her. But it could be, if I had you. Then again your mother was a wretched traitor. I can't risk it."
His hand still on hers, Voldemort forced her wrist to twist in such a manner so that Ana's wand was now pointed squarely at her own heart. A flash of green went off…