Nico, Voldemort's Older Brother (Being Rewritten)

Nico XXIII

  I was riding on the back of an eagle owl, soaring through the clear blue sky toward an old, ivy-covered house set high on a hillside. Lower and lower we flew, the wind blowing pleasantly in my face, until we reached a dark and broken window in the upper story of the house and entered. Now we were flying along a gloomy passageway, to a room at the very end . . . through the door we went, into a dark room whose windows were boarded up. . . .

  I had left the owl's back . . . I was watching, now, as it fluttered across the room, into a chair with its back to me. . . . There were two dark shapes on the floor beside the chair . . . both of them were stirring. . . .

  One was a huge snake . . . the other was a man . . . a short, balding man, a man with watery eyes and a pointed nose . . . he was wheezing and sobbing on the hearth rug. . . .

  "You are in luck, Wormtail," said a cold, high-pitched voice from the depths of the chair in which the owl had landed. "You are very fortunate indeed. Your blunder has not ruined everything. He is dead."

  "My Lord!" gasped the man on the floor. "My Lord, I am . . . I am so pleased . . . and so sorry. . . ."

  "Nagini," said the cold voice, "you are out of luck. I will not be feeding Wormtail to you, after all . . . but never mind, never mind . . . there is still Harry Potter. . . ."

  The snake hissed. I could see its tongue fluttering.

  "Now, Wormtail," said the cold voice, "perhaps one more little reminder why I will not tolerate another blunder from you. . . ."

  "My Lord . . . no . . . I beg you . . ."

  The tip of a wand emerged from around the back of the chair. It was pointing at Wormtail.

  "Crucio!" said the cold voice.

  Wormtail screamed, screamed as though every nerve in his body were on fire, the screaming filled my ears; I was yelling too. . . . Tom would hear me, would know I was there. . . .

  "Nico! Wake up!" Selena's panicked face filled my vision. "Good, you're awake."

  Serena helped me sit up. "I'm so sorry! I didn't realize that I didn't put up the dream blocker, until I woke up. Are you okay? What happened?"

  "I—I saw Tom, he was torturing a person named Wormtail." I whispered. "He's changed so much, I hardly recognize him."

  Selena let out a sharp gasp. "Wormtail, the betrayer of Lily and James. You must have been seeing what your brother was doing."

  I blinked, waking up. "I'm glad he's being tortured. When Tom becomes good, Wormtail's the first to die."

  Serena nodded, "He will be, I'll try." She glanced out her open window at the rising sun and cursed. "Class is about to start!"

  Selena gasped, "Let's go!"