The Marauders: Year Three | #Wattys2016

Hunting Time Approaches

Hunting Time Approaches

Druella Black raised her palms high over her head, spinning in a steady rain that fell from the sky over the muddy little park before Number 12 Grimmauld Place. The sky was dark grey and her usually pouffy hair was soaked and hanging in stringy clumps 'round her face, but it had been so long since she'd felt the rain that she danced and laughed, sing-songing loudly so that her voice echoed about the square.

Walburga stood in the window of the house, staring out at Druella, her lips curled in disapproval. She poured a cup of steaming tea and put it down on the saucer on a tray. "Kreacher," she called, looking around.

Kreacher crawled out of the cabinet nest, dabbing his globe-like eyes with the hem of his tea cloth toga. "Mistress calls for Kreacher and Kreacher comes to obey his mistress," he said, his voice even croakier than usual.

Walburga thust the tray toward him, "Take this to the Dark Lord."

Kreacher creeped closer, dropping his toga and flapping his ears, "Kreacher will take the Dark Lord his tea, yes Mistress, Kreacher can do this..." He held the tea tray over his head and teetered out of the kitchen and up the short steps to the parlor by the front door, where the Dark Lord had made his lair. He pushed the door opened timidly and entered the dark room.

Voldemort sat in a chair by the fire, which glowed an eerie green, flickering lowly as Kreacher carried the tray into the room. Orion Black and Abraxas Malfoy flanked his chair, each sitting on little wooden tables taken from the squat table in Regulus's room where Kreacher kept the gobstones set up and polished and ready for his master's return. Fenrir Greyback leaned with one arm against the mantle before the fire, baring his sharp canine teeth in the reflection of a foggy glassed mirror that stood on the shelf. He ran his tongue over the pointed incisors, a bit of drool falling over his chin as he did so. He swept his palm across his face to wipe up.

Kreacher slid the tray onto a small table beside the Dark Lord's chair carefully.

"The full moon comes closer, Greyback; your hunting time approaches," Voldemort said, "What plans have you to increase my army?"

Fenrir growled, "The best, my Lord. My omega's current position opens quite a lot of blood for the taking - young blood, mind. The juiciest sort." He grinned, cackling quietly. "He's got quite an impressive brood of students under his care."

"What good do school children do me?" the Dark Lord demanded.

"What's the one thing that every momma and pappy will fight for if not their bairns?" Greyback hissed.

Voldemort thought a moment, then leaned back into his chair, an amused smile spreading slowly across his face, "I see.. Go on." He reached out and took up the teacup from the tray Kreacher had pushed to his side.

"We get the children, take them from their school where their ickle widdle parents think they're so bloody safe and one by one we show them we mean business... one little, two little, three little werewolves are turned," -- he snapped his teeth -- "Just like that, I've hunted down an army of children, ready to fight for the cause of the Dark Lord... and then the parents know we're not kidding about and they begin to serve to keep us from changing the rest of their ickle little ones..." Fenrir grinned, "Meanwhile, we weaken the strong ones. The folks in the Resistance. It's their kids we bite first to draw them out. You endanger their children and they take notice, they come out of their little hiding places to save them... That was proved in the forest by the Potter property. Didn't even get away from the fight before Potter swept in to protect his son." Fenrir snickered, "Every hunter knows -- it's easier to smoke the prey out of hiding than it is to get them in their dens."