Chapter One

The Dark Lord Ascending



The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit

lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then,

recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking

briskly in the same direction.

"News?" asked the taller of the two.

"The best," replied Severus Snape.

The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high,

neatly manicured hedge. The men's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they

marched.

"Thought I might be late," said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as

the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. "It was a little trickier than I

expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be

good?"

Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led

off the lane. The high hedge curved into them, running off into the distance beyond the

pair of imposing wrought-iron gates barring the men's way. Neither of them broke step:

In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as

though the dark metal was smoke.

The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men's footsteps. There was a rustle

somewhere to their right: Yaxley drew his wand again pointing it over his companion's

head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock,

strutting majestically along the top of the hedge.

"He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks ..." Yaxley thrust his wand back

under his cloak with a snort.

A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive,

lights glinting in the diamond paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden

beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Snape and

Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though

nobody had visibly opened it.

The hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent

carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the wall

followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden

door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned

the bronze handle.

The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The

room's usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination

came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded

mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew

accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the

scene: an apparentlyunconscious human figure hangingupside down over the table,

revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in

the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this



singular sight were looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below

it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so.

"Yaxley. Snape," said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. "You are

very nearly late."

The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at

first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As they drew nearer,

however, his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and

gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a

pearly glow.

"Severus, here," said Voldemort, indicating the seat on his immediate right.

"Yaxley ? beside Dolohov."

The two men took their allotted places. Most of the eyes around the table

followed Snape, and it was to him that Voldemort spoke first.

"So?"

"My Lord, the Order of the Phoenix intends to move Harry Potter from his current

place of safety on Saturday next, at nightfall."

The interest around the table sharpened palpably: Some stiffened, others fidgeted,

all gazing at Snape and Voldemort.

"Saturday ... at nightfall," repeated Voldemort. His red eyes fastened upon

Snape's black ones with such intensity that some of the watchers looked away, apparently

fearful that they themselves would be scorched by the ferocity of the gaze. Snape,

however, looked calmly back into Voldemort's face and, after a moment or two,

Voldemort's lipless mouth curved into something like a smile.

"Good. Very good. And this information comes ?"

" ? from the source we discussed," said Snape.

"My Lord."

Yaxley had leaned forward to look down the long table at Voldemort and Snape.

All faces turned to him.

"My Lord, I have heard differently."

Yaxley waited, but Voldemort did not speak, so he went on, "Dawlish, the Auror,

let slip that Potter will not be moved until the thirtieth, the night before the boy turns

seventeen."

Snape was smiling.

"My source told me that there are plans to lay a false trail; this must be it. No

doubt a Confundus Charm has been placed upon Dawlish. It would not be the first time;

he is known to be susceptible."

"I assure you, my Lord, Dawlish seemed quite certain," said Yaxley.

"If he has been Confunded, naturally he is certain," said Snape. "I assure you,

Yaxley, the Auror Office will play no further part in the protection of Harry Potter. The

Order believes that we have infiltrated the Ministry."

"The Order's got one thing right, then, eh?" said a squat man sitting a short

distance from Yaxley; he gave a wheezy giggle that was echoed here and there along the

table.

Voldemort did not laugh. His gaze had wandered upward to the body revolving

slowly overhead, and he seemed to be lost in thought.



"My Lord," Yaxley went on, "Dawlish believes an entire party of Aurors will be

used to transfer the boy ?"

Voldemort held up a large white hand, and Yaxley subsided at once, watching

resentfully as Voldemort turned back to Snape.

"Where are they going to hide the boy next?"

"At the home of one of the Order," said Snape. "The place, according to the

source, has been given every protection that the Order and Ministry together could

provide. I think that there is little chance of taking him once he is there, my Lord, unless,

of course, the Ministry has fallen before next Saturday, which might give us the

opportunity to discover and undo enough of the enchantments to break through the rest."

"Well, Yaxley?" Voldemort called down the table, the firelight glinting strangely

in his red eyes. "Will the Ministry have fallen by next Saturday?"

Once again, all heads turned. Yaxley squared his shoulders.

"My Lord, I have good news on that score. I have ? with difficulty, and after great

effort ? succeeded in placing an Imperius Curse upon Pius Thicknesse."

Many of those sitting around Yaxley looked impressed; his neighbor, Dolohov, a

man with a long, twisted face, clapped him on the back.

"It is a start," said Voldemort. "But Thicknesse is only one man. Scrimgeour must

be surrounded by our people before I act. One failed attempt on the Minister's life will

set me back a long way."

"Yes ? my Lord, that is true ? but you know, as Head of the Department of

Magical Law Enforcement, Thicknesse has regular contact not only with the Minister

himself, but also with the Heads of all the other Ministry departments. It will, I think, be

easy now that we have such a high-ranking official under our control, to subjugate the

others, and then they can all work together to bring Scrimgeour down."

"As long as our friend Thicknesse is not discovered before he has converted the

rest," said Voldemort. "At any rate, it remains unlikely that the Ministry will be mine

before next Saturday. If we cannot touch the boy at his destination, then it must be done

while he travels."

"We are at an advantage there, my Lord," said Yaxley, who seemed determined to

receive some portion of approval. "We now have several people planted within the

Department of Magical Transport. If Potter Apparates or uses the Floo Network, we shall

know immediately."

"He will not do either," said Snape. "The Order is eschewing any form of

transport that is controlled or regulated by the Ministry; they mistrust everything to do

with the place."

"All the better," said Voldemort. "He will have to move in the open. Easier to

take, by far."

Again, Voldemort looked up at the slowly revolving body as he went on, "I shall

attend to the boy in person. There have been too many mistakes where Harry Potter is

concerned. Some of them have been my own. That Potter lives is due more to my errors

than to his triumphs."

The company around the table watched Voldemort apprehensively, each of them,

by his or her expression, afraid that they might be blamed for Harry Potter's continued

existence. Voldemort, however, seemed to be speaking more to himself than to any of

them, still addressing the unconscious body above him.



"I have been careless, and so have been thwarted by luck and chance, those

wreckers of all but the best-laid plans. But I know better now. I understand those things

that I did not understand before. I must be the one to kill Harry Potter, and I shall be."

At these words, seemingly in response to them, a sudden wail sounded, a terrible,

drawn-out cry of misery and pain. Many of those at the table looked downward, startled,

for the sound had seemed to issue from below their feet.

"Wormtail," said Voldemort, with no change in his quiet, thoughtful tone, and

without removing his eyes from the revolving body above, "have I not spoken to you

about keeping our prisoner quiet?"

"Yes, m-my Lord," gasped a small man halfway down the table, who had been

sitting so low in his chair that it appeared, at first glance, to be unoccupied. Now he

scrambled from his seat and scurried from the room, leaving nothing behind him but a

curious gleam of silver.

"As I was saying," continued Voldemort, looking again at the tense faces of his

followers, "I understand better now. I shall need, for instance, to borrow a wand from one

of you before I go to kill Potter."

The faces around him displayed nothing but shock; he might have announced that

he wanted to borrow one of their arms.

"No volunteers?" said Voldemort. "Let's see ... Lucius, I see no reason for you to

have a wand anymore."

Lucius Malfoy looked up. His skin appeared yellowish and waxy in the firelight,

and his eyes were sunken and shadowed. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse.

"My Lord?"

"Your wand, Lucius. I require your wand."

"I ..."

Malfoy glanced sideways at his wife. She was staring straight ahead, quite as pale

as he was, her long blonde hair hanging down her back, but beneath the table her slim

fingers closed briefly on his wrist. At her touch, Malfoy put his hand into his robes,

withdrew a wand, and passed it along to Voldemort, who held it up in front of his red

eyes, examining it closely.

"What is it?"

"Elm, my Lord," whispered Malfoy.

"And the core?"

"Dragon ? dragon heartstring."

"Good," said Voldemort. He drew out his wand and compared the lengths. Lucius

Malfoy made an involuntary movement; for a fraction of a second, it seemed he expected

to receive Voldemort's wand in exchange for his own. The gesture was not missed by

Voldemort, whose eyes widened maliciously.

"Give you my wand, Lucius? My wand?"

Some of the throng sniggered.

"I have given you your liberty, Lucius, is that not enough for you? But I have

noticed that you and your family seem less than happy of late ... What is it about my

presence in your home that displaces you, Lucius?"

"Nothing ? nothing, my Lord!"

"Such lies Lucius ... "



The soft voice seemed to hiss on even after the cruel mouth had stopped moving.

One or two of the wizards barely repressed a shudder as the hissing grew louder;

something heavy could be heard sliding across the floor beneath the table.

The huge snake emerged to climb slowly up Voldemort's chair. It rose, seemingly

endlessly, and came to rest across Voldemort's shoulders: its neck the thickness of a

man's thigh; its eyes, with their vertical slits for pupils, unblinking. Voldemort stroked

the creature absently with long thin fingers, still looking at Lucius Malfoy.

"Why do the Malfoys look so unhappy with their lot? Is my return, my rise to

power, not the very thing they professed to desire for so many years?"

"Of course, my Lord," said Lucius Malfoy. His hand shook as he wiped sweat

from his upper lip. "We did desire it ? we do."

To Malfoy's left, his wife made an odd, stiff nod, her eyes averted from

Voldemort and the snake. To his right, his son, Draco, who had been gazing up at the

inert body overhead, glanced quickly at Voldemort and away again, terrified to make eye

contact.

"My Lord," said a dark woman halfway down the table, her voice constricted with

emotion, "it is an honor to have you here, in our family's house. There can be no higher

pleasure."