III. Death Eaters
When the Dark Lord beckoned one of his Death Eaters after him, he scampered to follow the Dark Lord immediately. He extended his hand harsher for a moment, and suddenly the other Death Eaters were also following.
The Dark Lord said, "Today, you will witness a triumph in our war against inferior blood."
"My Lord," one of them breathed.
"Today, I will triumph against those who will choose to fight against their rightful place in society. Today, we all triumph," he said.
They followed behind him, halting when he stopped for a moment and waved a hand over them. Invisible now, they followed.
"Stay silent, my Death Eaters," he said. "You are not to interfere with what goes on. This is my battle to win."
Fascinated, they followed. Was he going to attack Dumbledore? The Minister of Magic?
When he told them where to Apparate, they were surprised to be going to Godric's Hollow, a quaint, small town. But it was filled with blood traitors, mingling with muggles, so perhaps there was a high profile target here. They still they held out hope for a battle, a showdown, the triumph to halt all progress of the so-called Light side.
When he whispered a Secret to them, they followed him into the Potter's home and were able to see James Potter in the living room. He wanted to duel – but he didn't even have a wand. They had to remind themselves not to chuckle; for some reason, their Lord wanted this showdown to seem private.
(It wasn't their place to question orders.)
When they went upstairs and when they witnessed the Evans girl refuse to stand aside, a few of them rolled their eyes. They still didn't understand how defeating one mudblood would secure their triumph, but the Dark Lord always did put on a good show.
(They wouldn't understand until much, much later that the Dark Lord had been referring to the baby.)
When the curse fired upon the boy and then back again, a few ducked out of the way instinctively, and then – then their Lord was just gone. These Death Eaters were just children, just boys and girls really, some fresh out of school. They didn't know what to do; they didn't know what to do.
They Disapparated, and later that night, in a secret meeting, tried to determine what had occurred. The Death Eaters vowed each other to secrecy, vowed each other to silence.
But as secrets are wont to do, this too came out. Within hours, one had let it slip at a pub, and within an hour of that, another had been caught by an Auror and let the secret loose during interrogation.
The Death Eaters didn't know what they had witnessed, but by that night, the world had determined what had happened, and their Lord was considered vanquished.
They fled and some were caught, and some who hadn't been there and didn't believe the rumors went to torture the Longbottoms.
The rest of the world raised its glasses to the boy-who-lived.