The Pureblood Coup

Continuation of….


Chapter Seven: Empty Spaces


Bellatrix and Narcissa pattered lightly to the base of the immense main staircase, which is lined by stone busts of the Malfoy lineage, going up the ceiling in vertical rows. Down a narrow corridor they rushed. The walls were purple and so was the carpeting, with more visuals of the ancient Malfoys depicted through their individual portraits.

A door was ajar with a slither of firelight casting shadow onto the hallway’s ornate carpet over most of the stone floor. They could hear the crackle of logs in the marble fireplace, and a faint hissing sound inside.

But other then that, it was quiet inside the Drawing Room and so Bellatrix assumed that all the Death Eaters who did not live at headquarters must have left just prior to Voldemort’s arrival.

Narcissa’s hand’s trembled and she reached towards the double doors to bolt them open. Bellatrix slapped her hand back, shaking her head vigorously.

They heard Voldemort speak, “Harry Potter escapes from a muggle café....How very valuable to me....I can see how you lost Gibbon in friendly fire, Rowle!”

Voldemort referred to the Death Eater named Gibbon who had died during the battle that ensued after Severus Snape had killed Dumbledore at Hogwarts last June.

“My lord…We think we responded to the Taboo…,” came out Dolohov meekly, though his voice was still deep.

Meanwhile, Peter Pettigrew came trotting up the corridor from his job keeping watch over the kidnapped Wandmaker, Ollivander. His watery eyes glazed over Narcissa, and Bellatrix, and then he cupped a hand around his ear, listening at the door.

Dolohov and Rowle avoided eye contact with their master, looking anywhere but at those gleaming red eyes. But Voldemort’s eyes managed to lock onto theirs, and he only had to look for a second this time to know exactly what transpired.

Voldemort let out a cynical laugh and said, “....So? You were stunned by a friend of Harry Potter’s were you not Rowle? As well as you Dolohov? And yet, you are not aware of this?”

“No, Master,” Rowle answered, ashamed. He could not feel more stupid than he did at this point in time than ever in his life.

“It was your short-term memory obliviated by a foul Mudblood…Draco! Demonstrate your skill with the Cruciatus for us.”

Draco stepped across the long room lit only by the firelight and stood before the two men who were in kneeling position before the Dark Lord. Draco looked slight, standing next to the huge blonde wizard of seven feet in height, who on his knees was now much shorter, and then there was the brutal, battle-scarred Dolohov.

The pale young man took his wand out, and without looking at the men he started, “Crucio!”

The great blonde Death Eater dropped, screaming and writhing. And then Dolohov joined him, as Draco cast the curse onto him next. Voldemort stood beside Draco, practically every vein popping out of his melatonin deprived skin.

“More, Rowle, or shall we end it and feed you to Nagini? Lord Voldemort is not so sure that he will forgive this time….You called me back for this, to tell me that Harry Potter has escaped again? Draco, give Rowle another taste of our displeasure….Do it, or feel my wrath yourself!”

A log fell in the fire: flames reared, their light darting across the terrified, pointed white face of Draco. He was gaunt and petrified as he continued to be put to use by Voldemort, forced to punish the other followers.

Lucius was standing in the background in a corner of the room, observing it all leisurely.

Something heavy slid along the floor from outside the room. Narcissa darted to the other end of the hallway, arms covering her face. The snake, Nagini came slithering into the Drawing Room. Bellatrix did not even wince, as the snout face came up to her own, and then the snake crossed through the narrow chasm between the doors.

Draco relinquished his powers over the two Wizards, and they stopped screaming almost immediately. Voldemort looked towards the Drawing Room door, as he could sense their presence through advanced Legilimency.

“Come out of the hallway now, and I shall show what happens to those residents of Malfoy Manor who are so foolishly negligent.”

Narcissa scampered inside, clutching herself at the shoulders, hiding behind Bellatrix. Independently, Pettigrew followed opening and closing his mechanical silver hand as if twiddling his thumbs.

They could see in the irridescent reds and oranges of the firelight, Voldemort. His eyelids were red with fatigue, or perhaps flushed from rage. He was still extremely furious. But it was odd to see an enraged man like that, with not a hint of colour to his meatless cheekbones. Where there should have been eyebrows there were only deep-set shadows.

At once, Voldemort ordered dangerously, his eyes glittering with a clear, calculating look, “Stand…I said stand up….”

About to resort to the Imperius Curse, both men got up on wobbling feet, feeling quite unbalanced after their punishment.

“I am not finished with you yet….” He thought how Crucio was not enough, no longer adequate. He needed to really punish them, and what better than one of his most secret fears? The pressing silence of complete darkness would work efficiently.

“Dolohov and Rowle: remove all clothing,...and give your wands and the robes to me.”

They gaped at their master in shock. Dolohov’s twisted, brutal features turned to look at his partner, Thorfinn Rowle.

Then they complied, until they were standing with their backs warming to the flames from the hearth behind them.

They placed their robes at Voldemort’s feet, and backed away, with a mixture of awe and terror.

“Consider the rest of you warned: What shall happen if you call me for nothing, or fail miserably at an order I give, thus revealing your ineptitude at serving me? You shall be thrown into isolation....Or what is the phrase? Solitary confinement.”

Voldemort paused to make it sink in for everyone, and his ferocious eyes clasped onto Bellatrix, Lucius, Wormtail, Draco, and Narcissa in orderly turn. Draco and Narcissa were so drained of color they looked like they were about to faint.

“Now out of here, Dolohov and Rowle. I will not have anything to do with your pathetic selves. You have been worthless for Lord Voldemort and must suffer the consequences.”

Dolohov and Rowle, turned leaving the Drawing room. Bellatrix, watching intently, full of interest.

Voldemort, after leaving the Drawing room had his wand pressing into their backs, leading Dolohov and Rowle through the corridors.

At the main staircase, Dolohov, and Rowle went up the steps laboriously, as if their ankles were fettered by chains. They were resigned to the belief that they could not escape their fate.

Voldemort did not speak to them at all during the trek up to a twisting corridor where guest bedrooms were mostly located. He stopped at a secluded cramped space between two mean looking statues.

The door was blast open to a cob-webbed, ancient broom cupboard. It looked like it had not been used for centuries.

He shoved the tall, muscular Rowle inside the hole, his spidery hand actually pushing back the huge blonde man’s bare chest. He then closed the tiny, cramped space immediately, casting several spells to prevent it opening.

“When will you let me out?,” bawled the fully-grown man, his voice muffled through the stone enclosure.

“Consider you will die in there,” Voldemort answered mercilessly.

“Your tomb next, Dolohov.” Without a backwards glance, Voldemort left Thorfinn Rowle to his cries of misery, to lonliness welling up, growing into an increasing sense of panic.

With hubris, Voldemort concluded that nobody needed to keep watch. They were deprived of their wands, and it was not possible to apparate out of the manor’s property either. He felt righteous in his actions, if only to subject them to a taste, just a taste of the lost opportunity and loss of control he felt from losing out on tonight's quest for the Elder wand….

After imprisoning Dolohov, he would stalk back to the Master bedroom, to be left alone with his ruminating.


Note: A few sentences here are word for word from JK Rowling's book, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. For I am basing this scene on what happened. I just wanted to put that on the record. But again, I own nothing.