The Nightmare Man's Journey

Chapter Eight

Voldemort had used people as bait before, including his own Death Eaters. It had never made him this nervous before. Was it because he was using Harry Potter as bait? Harrison would never have approved, only because he considered Harry his, and anyone who hurt Harry was on the fast track to a violent, bloody death if Harrison had any say in it. Voldemort remembered the one time Harry got kidnapped after all. Well, he hadn't been there to see it, but he heard about it later by Lucius, who had been there before Harry had been retrieved.

Now, was he nervous that Harry would get hurt, or was he nervous that Harrison would somehow find out about this whole bait-thing and come back from beyond the Veil purely to give Voldemort a violent, bloody death? He didn't know at this point.

He didn't know if Harrison would ever come back. Bellatrix was the only one truly believing it still and wasn't that funny? She had hated Harrison when they first met, absolutely loathed him and then all of a sudden they were best buddies, torturing people together and having a laugh. Voldemort didn't understand the way Bellatrix worked, but then again, he didn't really understand how Harrison worked either.

Whatever; the point was, he was nervous as hell. For Harry's sake. That if he was to be taken, and possibly killed, what would happen to the children? What would happen to Elise and Lucian, the only servants awake? Or even Draco and Rabastan, what would happen to them, they who had lost their world already and now were on the brink on losing what they had built up over the last five years?

He shouldn't think about it that way, but he couldn't help himself. Voldemort often looked for the worst possible outcomes before thinking something positive.

Harry wasn't as worried as him, and Harry was the one playing the bait!

And then, over three months after Harrison's disappearance but not even two weeks after Harry had started playing bait, the move was made.

Voldemort was alerted that Hermione Granger was following Harry, who had gone out to Muggle London less than thirty minutes earlier. Voldemort took four Death Eaters with him and hurried to follow them.

By the time he and the Death Eaters arrived, Harry was tailed by not just Granger, but also the two Weasley children, as well as Longbottom and Lovegood. All of the rebel leaders had gathered, for one single man. But perhaps they all wanted to capture their former friend, and demand answers? Or would they kill him in public, for everyone to see, so all the rebels could hear about Harry Potter's very public death? Would it raise moral, or give rebels hope their stupid, little war could go their way? It didn't really matter what they wanted though, because Voldemort wasn't going to let them go through with whatever they wanted to do.

It was still hard to believe how much trouble those five had given Voldemort over the last ten years. Still hard to believe they managed to actually have Harrison disappear through a Veil.

He should have killed them ten years ago, even if they were only teenagers back then. However, this was not the time to think what he could've and should've done; now was the time to finally capture them.

With the five rebel leaders caught, the rebels would be a bit more scattered. They wouldn't have Granger's brains, or Weasley's strategies. They would have to rely on each other, work without their leaders, and Voldemort knew the times they did do that, the rebels were sloppy and easily discovered.

Once the rebel leaders had been dealt with, the chaos within the Ministry could be addressed. The infected wound finally treated. The best cure had been to show up the Nightmare Lord, show them all what he was, but Harrison wasn't there.