Power ▸ Ron Weasley [1]

XXXV. INTRINSIC GREY

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE:

INTRINSIC GREY

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      Despite the fact that her father and brother were Death Eaters, Nova had never actually seen Lord Voldemort up close. He was every bit as frightening as she imagined he would be, with his snake-like features. Even from her place on the other side of the room, she could see the scarlet color of his eyes. The same color of the blood he had spilled since the second he had been born. He was tall, taller than Nova had expected and just tall enough to be that much more intimidating. Harry seemed frozen to his spot on the ground, staring at Voldemort in the same way Nova was. Shock. Disbelief. Fear.

      "So you smashed my prophecy?" Voldemort asked, his eerily calm voice wrapping around everyone in the room like a vice. The slits where normal eyes should be widened just slightly, exposing more of the ugly red color before they returned back to their previous position. In that moment, Nova wondered if she was looking at Lord Voldemort or his snake, Nagini. "No, Bella, he is not lying... I see the truth looking at me from within his worthless mind..." Nova should have known Harry wouldn't have been focused on keeping his guard up, on trying to block Voldemort from using occlumency on him. Not when Sirius, the man he looked up to as a father figure, had died moments before. "Months of preparation, months of effort... and my Death Eaters have let Harry Potter thwart me again..."

      Nova had never seen her godmother so frightened. She all but threw herself to Lord Voldemort's feet. "Master, I am so sorry, I knew not, I was fighting the Animagus Black!" Her cheeks were stained with tears blackened by the kohl underneath her eyes. Nova had never seen her look so weak. If Bellatrix wasn't a psychotic excuse of a woman, Nova might have felt sorry for her dear old Aunt Bella. "Master, you should know -"

      "Be quiet, Bella," Voldemort said immediately. Though his tone was still soft and feather-light, it shut Bellatrix up with the same power a scream would have. It was dangerously slow and articulate, the calm before the storm. "I shall deal with you in a moment. Do you think I have entered the Ministry of Magic to hear your sniveling apologies?"

      "But Master -" Bellatrix protested, still crumpled to the ground "- he is here - he is below -"

      It didn't take a genius to figure out the Dark Lord wasn't paying a scrap of attention to Bellatrix's words. They were falling of deaf ears, falling on a man that didn't care about her. Nova thought her godmother looked pathetic, at the ground near Voldemort's feet and begging him to forgive her. She'd never let herself get that way. She'd never let Theo get that way.

      "I have nothing more to say to you,Potter," Voldemort said in that same eerie, quiet tone. "You have irked me too often, for too long." Then, as fast as Nova could blink, he had his wand up and was shouting, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"