Wishmaster

Chapter Fourteen - Death Of A Prophecy

Deep in the Department of Mysteries, a quill scratched across a sheet of parchment, shaping words that would bring untold misery to yet another poor soul. Lucius Malfoy wrote several such documents each day, although unlike many death eaters, he took no pleasure in them, they were merely business. As he finished the document, he wrapped it in an official ribbon and gave it to his ghost owl to send. With an unearthly flutter of its wings, the owl took off directly through the stone wall, carrying the scroll with it. As the cold breeze in its wake wafted over the blond mans face, he closed his eyes and clasped his fingers together.

He was waiting.

The minutes ticked by, after tending to some minor duties, Lucius was about to send personally for his late guest when a knock at the door broke the silence. With a relieved sigh, Lucius called for the guest to enter. The door opened, then it was closed again and the rooms new occupant sat heavily in the extra, velvet padded chair. He was wearing muggle clothes and his face was haggard but almost preternaturally alert. But it was the gleam in his eye that drew the death eaters gaze, as if the man where a butterfly collector who had seen the worlds rarest specimen, but had failed to obtain it. Lucius surveyed the silent figure for a moment before starting the interview.

"You sighted Harry Potter." He stated.

The auror nodded.

"I sat with him in a coffee shop."

Lucius's right eyebrow shot up into his hairline, a feat that the auror privately admired.

"I was staked out in a street where one of the Order of the Phoenix was last reported to be seen when I saw two adolescents appear across the road from me. They where wearing robes."

"In muggle public?" Lucius enquired, his now lowered eyebrow regaining some of its former height.

"The girl seemed to be in some distress, the boy was angry, though he didn’t give much sign of it, a falling out with someone maybe. They moved into an alleyway and I followed to see them having a standoff with some muggle thugs. Potter seemed to be about to do some grievous bodily harm to the whelps, but the girl convinced him otherwise, she’s blond by the way."

Lucius nodded and the auror continued.

"I then attempted to accost them, but despite the fact that I already had them covered with my wand, they fought like demons, the boy especially."

Lucius felt his curiosity pique.

"He fights instinctively," the auror continued before he could ask. "And he isn’t at all clumsy either, his offensive knowledge seems to have been enriched at some point beyond the usual school teachings. He has no flare but then again that’s what gets a man killed, he’s a street fighter."

Lucius made a note of this and added it to the list of facts about Potter that every death eater and auror had been furnished with.

"And you lost this duel?" the death eater pressed.

"Obviously. We both gave as good as we got for a while but then the girl ripped off some kind of rapid-fire and I was forced to take my attention away from the boy. Then, he got me under an imperius curse. After that they went and bought muggle clothes with money they took from the muggle thugs they had knocked out, and the three of us went for a coffee, well, at least they did. I had to follow."

The auror stretched and cricked his neck.

"While they where having their coffees and laying low I began to struggle against the boy’s will. It was strong, I don’t think I could have broken free of it."

"The boy made a mistake?" Asked the blond death eater.

"Aye, he tried to smother me. Might have actually done it if he hadn’t panicked. I started to mentally assault him but then he did something, I don’t know how, the only way I can describe it was as a kind of silent banshee scream. It knocked me unconscious. When I came to, I found that he had knocked out half of the cafe as well, one woman, a muggle, was dead, the muggles took her away in an ambulance."

Lucius felt a small surge of triumph, Potter killing muggles? The Daily Prophet would have a field day! But what would the Dark Lord say? Lucius was not blind, Lord Voldemort's obsession with the boy had seemed to change focus lately and now he knew why.

Lucius proceeded to interrogate the auror further in order to extract further details about Potter: what he was wearing, his appearance, how he talked, moved – everything. Then he asked about the girl: what Potter and the girl had been talking about and in which cafe they had been.

When he had had enough he dismissed the auror and standing, moved round the desk to his fireplace. Taking some powder from a pot on the mantelpiece, he sprinkled it into the fire and stepped into it as the flames whooshed up in bright green tendrils.

"Malfoy Manor."

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The arched, archaic door shut with a grating clack. Against it, a small balding figure leaned and listened to the sound of jeering outside. Slowly, the small man reached up, wincing at the pain in his arm as the muscles complained. Latching the door, Wormtail got slowly to his feet, the muscles in his legs hurting almost as much as his arms. Stumbling over to his tiny bed, he collapsed onto it and rolled over onto his back, his head spinning.

He was angry.

He was angry about how people used him. He was angry at himself. He was angry about what was happening to wizards and he was angry at Voldemort. Voldemort, who had done all the things that made his life such an absolute mess.

And yet - he knew that he only had himself to blame: for the Dark Lords return and for the relinquishment of any place he had in the world that wasn’t as Lord Voldemort’s personal servant.

In the now silent space of his tiny bedroom, Wormtail felt the small dark flame inside him growing and he understood what it was now. He embraced it.

Wormtail did not know how long he lay there with the anger coursing through him, only that he knew that the next time he came into the Dark Lords presence his cowardly nature would once again stab him in the back and he would once again become the sniveling rat that he was. For now though, defiance flowed through him and made him feel alive, it was a forbidden, exciting feeling and he savored it.

It was perhaps an hour later when he heard the footsteps. The burning in Wormtail’s limbs had subsided now and he was nearly asleep when he heard them hurry by his door. For a moment, Wormtail was about to simply allow himself to fall asleep as knuckles rapped on the door of his Masters chambers, but just as he was about to drift off, he heard the urgent murmur of voices. Wormtail’s eyes opened and he listened to the nearly inaudible sibilant sound of his Master’s voice before the door of the chambers was quickly shut again.

Wormtail sat up. Something had caught his attention, he didn’t know what, but it had made him curious.

Crossing over to the tiny window that allowed dim light into his closet-sized room, Wormtail eased it open and then, transforming into a rat, scrambled up onto the ledge and peered out, his rat’s nose twitching. From below the scent of the garden herbs and the water of a softly murmuring fountain wafted up to him. Wormtail had opened his window many times to hear the sound of the ornament but this time the smell of a burning fire was what put him at ease. It meant that his Masters window was open.

The wall on that part of the house was one of the oldest and decrepit places despite the magical maintenances given to it, and Wormtail’s tiny, strong claws were easily able to find a grip as he scrabbled sideways across to the outer ledge of his Master’s window. Here, at the edge of the window, he paused, perched on the very edge, now able to hear the voices within the room. Silently, he lowered his head and gently threaded one of his long, mousy ears into the gap between the ledge and the window.

"-apparently a competent dueler, he also has a new companion-"

Lucius Malfoys light, but serious voice drifted across the room.

"the Lovegood girl, but that is not what I wishes to report, M,lord, the boy is a-"

"- a Telemagi? Lucius?"

From his hiding place, Wormtail shivered as the Dark Lords equally light, but icy tones hissed into the four corners of the dim space.

"Yes M'lord, but how-"

"I felt him wake up. Change the tune of the Daily Prophet, Lucius, I have no wish to harm the boy now."

"What should they say Master?"

"That the price on his head is lifted and that the ministry has found someone else to be guilty of Dumbledore’s death, some nameless person, it does not matter whom"

There was a brief pause and Wormtail was sure that Lucius had nodded.

"Will, the searches keep on after this, Master?"

"Of course they will, the boy will not believe the words in the Prophet for a moment but at least they may put him off balance, and the lack of a reward for his capture will perhaps draw him out of the near total seclusion he has kept since the price was put on his head. I also want an announcement in both the Prophet and wizarding wireless about our two new guests in the dungeon."

"Master..."

Lucius's voice was hesitant.

"Master, why this sudden lack of enmity? Surely, as the prophecy dictates, you must kill him or be -"

"I have already killed the boy, Lucius."

Out on the window ledge, Wormtail nearly lost his footing, scrabbling right up close to the pane, he squeezed his head under it, ears twitching. Inside the room was dark and a fire burned in the grate. Silhouetted against it, Wormtail could see the graceful, and to him, terrifying form of Lord Voldemort pacing back and forth in apparent agitation. Near to the doorway, Lucius pale face and hair gleamed in the firelight as he stood nervously watching the prowling figure. Voldemort continued.

"A prophecy does not care what happens after its completion, Lucius, it is like a child wanting to get to the end of a fairytale. After the supposed "happily ever after" then the child closes the book and walks away, unmindful of the mess it leaves behind. So it was with the prophecy of the light and so it will be with the prophecy of the dark."

"You think the second prophecy will come to pass?"

"The conditions have been met Lucius. The phoenix has risen from the ashes and Harry Potter is no longer the one with the power to vanquish me. Now, I must find him before my new opponent does, for he plays perhaps a more important role in this prophecy than in the last one."

Lucius bowed his head.

"I will lead the search for him myself M'lord"

His head once again spinning, Wormtail scrambled back to his own window. He turned back into a man, quietly closed he window behind him and lay back down on his bed.

Inside his mind, chaotic thoughts whirled.

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Authors Note : My copy of The Sims 3 is due to arive soon. I may not be updating for some time.

A big thank you to my revewers and raters since chapter 13.