The Empress of Magic

Chapter 87 : The Death Eaters

Something was wrong.

Voldemort turned away from Harry and began examining his own body. His hands were like large, pale spiders; his long white fingers caressed his own chest, his arms, his face; the red eyes, whose pupils were slits, like a cats, gleamed still more brightly through the darkness. He held up his hands and flexed the fingers, his expression all the while staying neutral........

..... This was not the body he knew or wanted......

He could feel it in the frailness of his bones, how the light threatened to melt his skin, and his limbs which felt as if he were trying to singlehandedly lift an elephant over his head...........

But why?

The ritual should have succeeded, he had made sure of it, preparing months in advance.......

Yet something had gone terribly wrong.

Trapped deep in his thoughts he took not the slightest notice of Wormtail, who lay twitching and bleeding on the ground, nor of the great snake, which had slithered back into sight and was circling Harry again, hissing......

Slowly, he slipped one of his unnaturally long-fingered hands into a deep pocket and drew out a wand....

Moving his arm sent a burning pain shooting straight up his limb and up to his brain, but he was pleased to say that at least his Wand had remained a comfortable fit in his hands, even if they were now deformed.

He caressed it gently as if greeting a beloved childhood pet; then he raised it, and pointed it at Wormtail, who was lifted off the ground and thrown against the headstone where Harry was tied; he fell to the foot of it and lay there, crumpled up and crying. Voldemort then turned his scarlet eyes upon Harry, laughing a high, cold, mirthless laugh.

Wormtail's robes were shining with blood now; he had wrapped the stump of his arm in them.

"My Lord..." he choked, "my Lord...you promised...you did promise..."

"Hold out your arm," said Voldemort lazily.

"Oh, Master...thank you, Master..."

He extended the bleeding stump, but Voldemort laughed again.

"The other arm, Wormtail."

"Master, please...please..."

Voldemort bent down and pulled out Wormtail's left arm; he forced the sleeve of Wormtail's robes up past his elbow, and Harry saw something upon the skin there, something like a vivid red tattoo - a skull with a snake protruding from its mouth - the image that had appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup: the Dark Mark. Voldemort examined it carefully, ignoring Wormtail's uncontrollable weeping.....

He knew he should have begged for his Lady to come and offer her assistance. She would have undoubtedly done so to save him from his misery....

"It is back," he said softly, "they will all have noticed it...and now, we shall see...now we shall know..."

, Who has branded himself as a traitor and who has remained loyal to me.......'

He pressed his long white forefinger to the brand on Wormtail's arm.

Harry felt the scar on his forehead flaring up once more, barely able to hear Wormtail let out a fresh howl from the ringing in his ears; Voldemort removed his fingers from Wormtail's mark, and Harry saw that it had turned jet black.

With a look of cruel satisfaction on his face, Voldemort straightened up, threw back his head, and stared around at the dark graveyard.

"How many will be brave enough to return when they feel it?" he whispered, his gleaming red eyes fixed upon the stars. "And how many will be foolish enough to stay away?"