Chapter 56.3- Doom Days

“By freak, surely you do not mean Wizard?” His Lord asked, and that was the tone every Death Eater became fa liar with at some point. It was the tone that told you that there were only two outcomes possible and they depended on what you said next. Either you would suffer under the cruciatus until your bowels loosened and you soiled yourself, or you suffered under the cruciatus until the Dark Lord got bored of it. Anyone with sense hoped for the former. The Dark Lord’s pleasure in the cruciatus was so great that he had kept it on Tobias Withers for so long that the man had run mad and then so long after that that the man had become sane again. Lucius remembered that day so vividly. He had entered the Dark Lord’s presence on three different occasion that day and each time Withers had been a fixture on the ground moaning in pain. No one even knew what the man had done. Some said he had done nothing and the Dark Lord just wanted to test how log he could hold the cruciatus for uninterrupted.

“So you are part of them. Now did you not hear what I said. The Freak isn’t here. Get out of my house.” Now he was holding the rod even more aggressively, brandishing it at them as he stepped forward.

“Yes, so I was not mistaken. You are one of them” His Lord whispered and even as his wand d don’t move, the rod in the man’s hand turned into a snake. The man yelped, a distinctively cowardly sound, and tried to drop the snake, but the snake had attached itself to him quite securely.

“Get it off me” the man screamed. The Dark Lord brought forth his wand with a flourish and the man was on the floor screaming next. Lucius tried not to pay too much attention to the wand. He had not gotten to see it in person but he had heard it whispered and now it was clear that the whispers were true. The Dark Lord had lost his wand. This wood was a lighter shade, and made a much shorter wand overall. While some doubted his Lord’s potency for it, Lucius had been under the cruciatus. Nothing had been diminished about his Lord’s power. And it was that power that this muggle now felt. The man screamed, wailed, yelled like a banshee, almost covering the sound of another avalanche hurtling itself down the stairs. Another muggle, this time a boy— so fat that he could only be the man’s son. He took in the situation and instead of running like was sensible, he jumped at them. “Dad” he screamed before he froze in the air. The Dark Lord had only given him a look.