The Serpent Of Lord Voldemort

  — CHAPTER TWO —Seeker in the Cellar  

Hissing and spitting with fury, Harry reared up and struck at him. The rat gave a terrified squeal and streaked for the rose bush, scuttling behind it to cower in the corner of the tank.

Harry slithered back and forth in front of the rose bush, so enraged he could barely think. It was Wormtail -- Wormtail, who had betrayed Harry's parents, framed Sirius Black and murdered Cedric Diggory with Voldemort's wand.

Harry wanted nothing more than to drag the rat from his refuge and strangle him, which would be somewhat difficult with no hands. Harry lashed his tail angrily. If he crawled after Wormtail and flushed him out into the open, could he perhaps use his coils to crush him?

'Don't like rats much, do you?' said Voldemort, sounding slightly surprised.

'I hate them!' spat Harry, without thinking -- he'd have to come up with a good story on very short notice if Voldemort asked him why.

But Voldemort merely said with a smirk, 'Well, he'll only be in there for a day or so. See to it that he has an interesting time.'

With a swish of his robes, Voldemort returned to the study.

Once Harry's initial rage died down, he settled himself beside the rose bush to glare at the petrified rat. He could go after Wormtail with his teeth, he supposed, but to have that foul, hairy creature in his mouth -- it was a sickening thought. Odd that, he'd been eating live frogs for weeks with no trouble.

Did Voldemort seriously expect him to eat a rat? Although Harry knew snakes could swallow fairly large meals, Wormtail looked a tad too large for him. Voldemort had said the rat was breakfast, but then he'd told Harry that Wormtail would be in the tank for the rest of the day. Had he meant tomorrow's breakfast?

As Harry replayed Voldemort's words in his mind, he suddenly realised that Voldemort had been speaking English, not Parseltongue, when he'd mentioned breakfast. The only instruction the snake had actually been given was to see that Wormtail had an interesting time ...

Harry didn't go into his burrow to sleep that evening. He stuck close to the rose bush, keeping a sharp eye on Wormtail, giving a warning hiss whenever the rat so much as twitched a whisker.

When the next morning dawned, Harry glided over to the pond and had a drink. Wormtail gazed yearningly at the water, but clearly didn't dare leave the shelter of the rose bush whilst Harry was nearby. Harry returned to his position, resisting the temptation to catch a frog. Let Wormtail believe he was in danger of being eaten, even if he wasn't.

It was late afternoon before Voldemort reached back into the tank and took the rat out.

'Dear, dear,' he said. 'It doesn't seem that Seeker eats rats after all. I must remember to Transfigure you into a frog, should I ever have cause put you in his tank again.'

He let Wormtail drop. The rat hit the floor with a smack and changed into a man. Peter Pettigrew, quite hysterical, lay grovelling and sobbing at Voldemort's feet.

'Master ... forgive me ... I thought ... I thought ...'

'Wormtail, you don't have the brains for thinking,' said Voldemort lazily. 'If I thought for one second that you had deliberately misled me, I would have given you to Nagini. She doesn't eat rats either ... but she does eat wizards.'

Voldemort turned on his heel and swept back into his study. As soon as the door shut, Wormtail staggered to his feet and Disapparated.

*

Although the incident had provided Harry with a break in his routine, he was unable to deduce anything of much value from it. Wormtail had done something stupid, obviously, but Voldemort had wanted him frightened, not killed ... this time. Two more useless facts were added to his growing list, as well as yet another horrible thing to worry about.

The possibility that Voldemort might turn Wormtail into a frog disturbed Harry deeply. He had never thought to wonder where the frogs he ate were coming from -- they simply turned up in his pond every few days. Voldemort's remark had quite spoiled his appetite. It also rekindled his fears about the task Voldemort intended him to do, a task which could only be drawing nearer.

From then onwards, Harry made certain to observe his frogs carefully for any signs of human intelligence prior to swallowing them, as carefully as he observed the Death Eaters in the waiting room for clues to what Voldemort was doing. Both activities proved to be an equal waste of effort.

It was looking less and less likely that Harry would have an opportunity strike a blow against the Dark side before he was called on to do the 'very important job' that Voldemort had for him. Which left the job itself ... Harry just hoped that it was important enough and that he could make enough of a mess of it to do some serious harm.

So Harry waited ... and he waited ... his nerves stretched to the breaking point by a peculiar combination of boredom and terror. In a way it was almost a relief when Voldemort came out of his study and reached into the tank once more, this time taking out Harry.

*

'Seeker ...'

Harry was woken by the sound of a low hissing voice, calling ... calling him. Still half asleep, he struggled out of his burrow and crawled towards it. The room was filled with a dim and strangely flickering light; Harry couldn't tell whether it was night or morning.

When he poked his head out of the tall grass, Harry saw that a torch had been lit in the sconce by the door. The glass front of his tank had vanished and Voldemort was leaning inside, scarlet eyes fixed on the pond.

'Wha --' said Harry blearily.

Voldemort's hand shot out like a striking snake, into the water and out again with a particularly plump and juicy-looking frog clutched in its long spidery fingers. Voldemort popped the frog into his mouth. This woke Harry right up.

'Ah, there you are,' said Voldemort when he'd finished swallowing the frog. He held out his arm, saying, 'Climb on.'

Harry climbed on, his heart racing. It appeared that the hour was now at hand for the work that Voldemort had brought him here to do.

Voldemort carried him through the door opposite the tank, which Harry had never before seen opened. Outside was a corridor. Voldemort walked along it until he came to a wooden panel carved with snakes.

'Open,' hissed Voldemort.

The panel slid aside to reveal a spiral staircase. Voldemort lit his wand and started down it. After what seemed like ages, the two of them reached the bottom. Harry found himself in a dark, windowless room with a dirt floor.

Some thirty or so high-backed chairs -- one bigger and more ornate than the rest -- were arranged around a circular table. On the back of each chair was a large, square patch of a weird, silvery white, glowing material. The squares weren't entirely solid, rippling like water and sending out occasional wisps of vapour. They resembled nothing so much as firmed-up pieces of the substance in Dumbledore's Pensieve.

The torches along the walls burst into flame. Voldemort stepped over to one of the chairs and tapped the square on its back with his wand. A picture of Harry became visible in it: the photo from Rita Skeeter's horrible Triwizard Tournament article.

'Do you recognise this?' asked Voldemort.

'Er -- yeah,' said Harry. 'It's -- it's the boy. From -- from the garden I used to live in.'

'Very good,' said Voldemort. 'His name is Harry Potter.'

Voldemort pointed his wand at the base of the nearest wall. Dirt began to bubble up from underneath it, leaving a gap between the wall and the floor. Voldemort leant down and let Harry slip off his arm. Harry saw that a small pit had been hollowed out below the wall.

'You are to wait in there,' Voldemort said. 'In a few hours, some people will come and sit at the table. When they have all arrived and the torches go out, you shall come out, find the chair with Harry Potter's picture on the back and bite the person sitting in it.'

'Er -- OK,' said Harry. 'But I'm not, you know, poisonous.'

At least he didn't think he was. It felt as though it was the truth, however, and he'd been right about eating frogs.

'That's quite all right, I don't expect you to kill him,' replied Voldemort. 'In you get.'

Harry squeezed into the pit and lay coiled there, feeling Voldemort go up the stairs again. So this was it ... what he'd been waiting for all these weeks ... his last chance to ruin Voldemort's plans as completely as possible before he died.

Yet Harry still had no more notion than ever of how this was to be accomplished. Voldemort had said Harry was to bite someone -- who? -- but not kill him -- what use was that? And what did Harry's picture have to do with it?

Harry could think of no satisfactory answers to any of these questions and the coldness of the room was making him sluggish and sleepy. Time passed, his thoughts drifted ... then an unpleasantly familiar sensation snapped them back into sharp focus.

Something was dragging itself across the floor. The vibrations grew stronger and stronger, then abruptly cut off. A great amber eye appeared in the narrow fissure that led to Harry's pit. It was Nagini -- and now there was no glass to hold her at bay.

Harry pushed himself as far back into the pit as he could get. Nagini sniffed at the entrance, but her head was much too large to fit through it.

Harry let out a small spitting sigh of relief. Nagini couldn't get at him, and Voldemort would surely send her away when it came time for Harry to carry out his orders.

Nagini drew back her head with a disgruntled hiss. Harry relaxed, loosening his coils and sliding forward a bit. Then --

'Yeuch!' he yelled.

Nagini's head might have been too big for the mouth of the pit, but her tongue wasn't, and she'd just licked him in the face. This was no laughing matter; Nagini's tongue was nearly the size of Harry's head.

Nagini flicked out her tongue again. Harry ducked his head amongst his coils to avoid getting hit in the face, but there wasn't enough room in the pit to move the rest of his body out of range.

'Stop that!' he shouted indignantly. 'Go away! I'll tell of you!'

Nagini gave him one last lick to show she could if she wanted to, and slithered off sniggering. Harry was left to wipe the snake spit off his face as best he could without hands.

Not long afterwards, a load of quite scared-smelling wizards began Apparating into the room. To Harry's astonishment, they all seemed to be Death Eaters. They wore the same sort of hoods and masks, at any rate, and Harry was catching whiffs of brands of soap that he remembered from in the waiting room.

When the Death Eaters had taken their seats at the table, Voldemort silently materialised in the great throne-like chair, adding his distinctive odour to the mix. He waved his wand and the torches extinguished themselves, leaving the room illuminated only by the eerie light from the shimmering squares, and his own burning red eyes.

Harry crept from the pit, made his way over to the chairs and looked at the back of nearest one. On the square was a picture of Ginny Weasley, waving furiously. Harry came to an abrupt halt and gaped up at it. He noticed that Ginny looked rather younger than she actually was; after some study he recognised the image as being from a photo of the Weasleys taken in Egypt two summers ago and printed in the Daily Prophet. Somehow colour had been added and the rest of the family taken out.

Good though it was to see a friendly face after so many weeks alone in the tank, the fact that Voldemort had a picture of Ginny Weasley did nothing for Harry's peace of mind. He went on to the next chair, which even more bizarrely contained a picture of Vincent Crabbe -- a fairly recent one as far as Harry could judge. Crabbe gave Harry a sullen look and cracked his knuckles. The chair after that had an image of Dumbledore, who smiled and winked at him.

As he made his way around the table, Harry saw pictures of Ron and his brothers from the Egypt photo, Malfoy and Goyle, Viktor Krum from the Quidditch World Cup posters, Snape and Hagrid (the latter also from a Rita Skeeter article), Pansy Parkinson smiling coyly and several other students Harry had seen at Hogwarts but didn't know the names of. He did not, however, see any pictures of himself.

Harry went round the table once more just to be sure, then stopped at the chair he'd started from. It now had an image of Bill Weasley on it. The pictures were evidently moving about, though still none of them were of Harry.

'I can't find him!' Harry hissed at Voldemort. 'And I've been twice around the table!'

'Keep searching,' replied Voldemort imperturbably. 'At your own pace, don't tire yourself. It may be a good while before he shows up.'

During their conversation, the fear smell coming off the Death Eater in the chair Harry was behind had increased steadily.

Harry continued around the table more slowly, wondering what on earth the point of this was. The Death Eaters were plainly terrified, but he couldn't understand of what. Was this some sort of spell? There didn't seem to be any magic being done -- no wand-waving, no chanting of incantations, nothing.

Harry recalled the last spell of Voldemort's he had unwillingly assisted in. Wormtail had been gathering ingredients, mixing a potion ... no one here was doing anything ... just sitting and growing more and more frightened.

The scent of terror filled the air -- except near Voldemort; he smelled much the way he had when Wormtail had lain writhing on the floor after being taken out of Harry's tank. The more petrified the Death Eaters grew, the more thoroughly Voldemort appeared to be enjoying the situation. Was that what this was about? Had Voldemort cooked up the whole thing merely to scare the Death Eaters?

If that was the case, Harry thought as he proceeded round the table yet again, it might be best to go ahead and bite whoever happened to be sitting in front of his picture when it finally turned up. He saw very little opportunity here for making a last stand.

The Death Eaters had wands inside their robes (Harry could smell the wood and polish), but even with the element of surprise he doubted he'd be able to wrest one away from its owner before the other Death Eaters got him. Even if he did, what damage could he do in the few seconds before he was killed? He'd be in the same fix he'd been in back at Tom Riddle's grave, but with no Portkey and no Priori Incantatem to save him.

But what if he bit the man and these odd arrangements proved to be part of a real spell? Harry further reduced his speed, thinking hard. If Voldemort was working a spell, the most likely target was Harry himself -- either to find him or to kill him would be his guess.

If the spell was a deadly curse, though, Voldemort was taking an awful risk by using Malfoy and Crabbe and Goyle's pictures. What if the snake made a mistake? That might be why the Death Eaters were so afraid, if their own children were in danger. Should Harry choose Malfoy's picture instead?

As much as he hated Malfoy, he didn't really want him dead ... but killing Malfoy would rob Voldemort of his most effective servant at Hogwarts, and Ron and Hermione would definitely be a lot safer there if Malfoy was -- out of the picture. Harry choked down a fit of semi-hysterical laughter.

In spite of all that, the thought of signing Malfoy's death warrant in such a manner was not a pleasant one. Harry had a sudden vision of Malfoy lying dead on the ground, staring at him accusingly with eyes as grey as Cedric's ... and what if he picked Malfoy's picture and it wasn't a spell after all? Harry shook his head angrily. He didn't know what to do, and his photo could be showing up at any minute.

Then an even nastier possibility occurred to him. Might the purpose of the spell be to kill not only Harry, but everyone whose image was displayed in the circle? Harry wouldn't put it past Voldemort to sacrifice any number of his own followers to get rid of Albus Dumbledore, if that was what the enchantment required. Harry didn't dare bite anybody, and once his picture appeared, Voldemort was going to be very keen on knowing why not.

Maybe he could claim that the wizard smelled so horrible he couldn't bring himself to do it. Harry suspected he wasn't the sort of snake that bit anyway; the idea of sinking his fangs into someone's leg held as little appeal as eating Wormtail had done.

Even when Harry had been attacking the rat, he'd instinctively kept his jaws tight shut. Could he do that to the Death Eater? Strike at him close-mouthed and tell Voldemort his teeth must've missed? It was the best excuse he could come up with. If it wasn't good enough, he'd just have to go for a wand and die fighting.

Harry carried on circling, feeling somewhat calmer now that he had a plan of action. As he passed behind Voldemort's chair for what felt like the thousandth time, Voldemort's excited smell became noticeably stronger. Several chairs further along, Harry stopped short. From a whitish silver square, his own face was staring back at him.

Harry slithered under the chair and fluttered his tongue, drawing scent from the air. This Death Eater smelled rather less of fear than the others did -- also rather less of soap. Under his robes he was wearing leather boots that, unless Harry's nose deceived him, came roughly halfway to the knee.

Harry wrapped his body round the leg of the chair, sighted a spot right above the Death Eater's boot and lunged, giving the man a good hard poke in the leg with his snout. Next instant, Harry darted beneath the table, stopping as close to the centre as he could manage. He didn't wish to be trampled if there was a panic, which he deemed all too likely considering how wound up the Death Eaters were.

As it transpired, he needn't have bothered. The scent of fear from the poked wizard rose sharply and he gave a slight shudder, but otherwise didn't react. Nonetheless, Voldemort apparently knew something had happened -- the smell he had of being extremely pleased with himself also intensified.

'Is it venomous?' the Death Eater asked, in an almost steady voice.

Harry jerked his head in shock. That voice, unmistakeably, belonged to Professor Snape.

Voldemort began to laugh, a cold, high-pitched laugh that filled the tiny room and reverberated through Harry's very bones. Harry trembled with fright; the smell of the Death Eaters' terror grew chokingly thick.

'Not yet,' Voldemort said, once the last echoes of his laughter had died away. 'That will be all for tonight. You may go.'

The scent of human fear faded slowly from the room as the Death Eaters Disapparated.

'You can come out now,' said Voldemort, sticking his head under the table. 'Well done.'

Heart still thumping hard against his many ribs, Harry crawled over to Voldemort's chair and on to his outstretched arm.

He spent the trip back to the waiting room in a daze. Not only had nothing magical happened, Voldemort didn't even appear to realise that Harry hadn't actually bitten anyone. Had Voldemort merely been playing a nasty joke on the Death Eaters after all? It seemed too good to be true that the job Harry had been so dreading should turn out to be no more than a stupid game.

But really, Harry thought, once he was back in his burrow, what kind of work could a snake that was barely two foot long and non-venomous have done for Voldemort? He had Nagini for any truly important missions ... If all he wanted from Harry was a means of bullying his servants, Harry could afford to bide his time until he found a way to perpetrate some genuinely damaging piece of sabotage. Or maybe one day Voldemort would take Nagini with him on one of his errands, leaving the coast clear for Harry to slip away. In the meantime, Harry might yet overhear something useful.

With these comforting thoughts, Harry rested his head on his coils to sleep, in better spirits than he had been in at any time since being put into the tank.

*

After that night, life in the waiting room went on as normal. Harry had been a prisoner of Voldemort for nearly five weeks, plus the unknown number of days he'd lost track of when he'd been so miserable about dying. His initial burst of optimism notwithstanding, Harry knew that it could be months or even years before any of the opportunities he was waiting for arose.

Now that there was no mysterious task looming over him, Harry was left adrift and curiously lethargic. When Nagini came into the waiting room, he stayed put on his rock, to her obvious annoyance, even when she slithered right up to the glass and tapped lightly on it with her snout. It wasn't that Harry had decided to finally stand up to her; he just didn't feel like moving.

He didn't feel like doing much of anything, really, although he did wonder a bit about Snape's presence amongst the Death Eaters. Evidently Snape had somehow convinced Voldemort of his loyalty.

Or had he? Why had Voldemort chosen him to be bitten?

Perhaps it was simply because Snape had been the least scared of the Death Eaters. Harry had come to the conclusion that Voldemort, so much like a snake in other ways, had almost as keen a sense of smell. On the other hand, it could have been meant as a warning, if Voldemort didn't fully trust Snape and wanted to let him know he had his eye on him.

Harry briefly considered asking Snape to help him escape, but quickly discarded this notion. He didn't fully trust Snape either.

Even if Snape was on their side, if he heard a snake speaking to him with Harry's voice, he might well assume that Voldemort was testing him and report the occurrence. Worse, if Snape tried to smuggle Harry out and got caught, they'd both end up dead, and Harry would have cost Dumbledore a valuable spy.

In any case, it was doubtful that Harry would be able to recognise Snape again under his mask and hood. None of the Death Eaters ever spoke aloud in the waiting room, and Harry couldn't gamble on distinguishing Snape by smell. It would be all too easy to mistakenly pick out some other Death Eater who happened not to have washed recently.

The Death Eaters didn't seem to be calling on Voldemort as often as they used to, and only once did a visit result in one of them being tortured. This occasion served as a sharp reminder to Harry that he was still in a quite serious fix.

Even so, he didn't see what further action he could take. All the watching, thinking, planning and worrying he had done since being captured had accomplished nothing ... nothing but to leave him too tired and drained to do any more. Harry couldn't even manage to be properly frightened when, one cloudy afternoon, Voldemort took him from his tank and brought him into the study.

*

Voldemort sat down at his desk and stared at the door he and Harry had just come through. He seemed to be waiting for something. Harry, twined about Voldemort's arm, had a surreptitious look around the room.

The bookshelves held considerably more books than they had done the last time Harry had been in the study. Above the fireplace hung a black silk banner emblazoned with a Dark Mark in shades of green -- a livid pale green skull and a poisonous bright green snake, drawn with dull dark green lines. The top of the desk was completely empty; the bronze toad, the emerald and most importantly the knife were nowhere to be seen.

So much for using it to attack Voldemort, Harry thought glumly. He wasn't at all sure that that would have done any good, though, when not even the dreaded Avada Kedavra Curse had sufficed to finish Voldemort off. If Harry did somehow contrive to stab him, he'd probably pluck the knife out of his heart, toss it aside and laugh.

Harry swung his head back to keep a watch on Voldemort. There was a strong odour about him that Harry couldn't identify -- not enjoyment as when he was terrorising the Death Eaters, and not fear either. Then a smell that was fear wafted under the door from the waiting room -- someone had Apparated.

'Enter,' said Voldemort curtly.

The door opened and a masked, hooded wizard slipped into the room. He closed the door, dropped to his knees and crawled towards the desk.

Voldemort gazed down at the Death Eater for several endless moments, then said in a deadly quiet voice, 'I had a rather interesting conversation last Sunday with a Madam Enid Kelly.'

The apprehensive smell from the Death Eater became more pronounced. Harry gave a twitch of surprise. Last year at Hogwarts, Madam Kelly was caught trying to steal a Famous Witches and Wizards card of Harry from Professor Snape.

Harry couldn't imagine why this should interest Voldemort, however, or what it had to do with the wizard on the floor. Harry was fairly certain he wasn't Snape -- not tall or thin enough, and there was a noticeably soapier smell to him.

'They nearly called off the Triwizard Tournament, you know,' Voldemort continued in the same soft, menacing tone. 'Couldn't be having foreign visitors with a mad Transfigurer on the loose. If there had been one more incident ...'

Harry's forehead was throbbing dully. He considered this an extremely bad sign. In all his time in the tank, his scar hadn't so much as twinged, and that with Voldemort not only in quite close proximity, but on some occasions very angry indeed, judging by the screams Harry had heard coming from the study.

Voldemort's elongated white fingers clutched the edge of the desk so hard that his hands shook. The unidentifiable smell coming off him grew stronger, and Harry realised what it must be: pure rage. The Death Eater quailed.

'My Lord ... I didn't know ...' he said hoarsely.

Harry twitched again -- the kneeling wizard was Lucius Malfoy.

Unnerved though he was by the odd turn the situation had taken, Harry couldn't help but feel a degree of spiteful satisfaction as he remembered Draco Malfoy's last words to him on the Hogwarts Express. He wondered whether Malfoy would be so pleased with the side he had chosen if he could see his father now, cringing before Lord Voldemort.

'Thought you'd have Gryffindor's legacy all for yourself, did you?' Voldemort snarled. 'Well, I have been going through the Potter family's background with a fine-toothed comb, and James Potter was no more the heir of Gryffindor than you are! Snape was not passing me disinformation after all -- that spell Wormtail told us about was something completely different.'

His voice fell to a near whisper. 'Thirteen years, all for nothing ...'

The wood of the desk began to smoke where Voldemort had dug his fingers into it. The smell of his anger was overpowering, but it was as nothing compared to the effect of his words on Harry. He mustn't react, Harry thought wildly, he mustn't give himself away. Then he was almost flung off Voldemort's arm when Voldemort stood abruptly, yanking out his wand.

'Thirteen years in which you did nothing but plunder what I left behind for your own gain!' he hissed at Mr Malfoy. 'Crucio!'

Lucius Malfoy's agonised shrieks filled the air. Harry shivered in mingled shock at what he had just heard and terror at the horrible noises Mr Malfoy was making. Then Voldemort lifted his wand and the screaming stopped. Mr Malfoy lay on the floor, gasping.

'You deserve far worse than that,' said Voldemort coldly, 'but this time I need you able to Apparate.'

Mr Malfoy's scent changed -- there was still fear, but also something else.

'Yes, Lucius, I'm giving you one last chance,' said Voldemort. 'Do you know what this is?'

He stepped out from behind the desk and thrust the arm Harry was wrapped around into Mr Malfoy's face. Mr Malfoy and Harry both recoiled.

'It -- it is a snake, my Lord,' said Mr Malfoy, sounding both bewildered and petrified.

'Yes,' said Voldemort. 'A snake. A common, harmless grass snake. A common, harmless grass snake that can recognise Harry Potter.'

He went back to the desk, opened a drawer, took out a small, roughly hewn wooden box and raised its lid. Inside was a ring, its band a pair of entwined copper serpents. A jewel that resembled a golden moonstone was balanced between their heads.

'And do you know what this is?' Voldemort asked, holding the box so Mr Malfoy could see its contents.

'An Aitvaras Eye!' breathed Mr Malfoy in sudden comprehension. Harry was left just as perplexed as before.

'Your son will be returning to Hogwarts tomorrow --' said Voldemort.

Another jolt of surprise went through Harry. He hadn't realised term would be starting so soon.

'-- wearing an old family heirloom and bringing a new animal with him,' Voldemort went on. 'Young Draco has Care of Magical Creatures with Harry Potter. Before his first lesson, he will work the Aitvaras transformation on Seeker -- it is a fairly simple spell. I am given to understand that the class is now being taught by that brainless, monster-loving oaf Rubeus Hagrid ...'

Voldemort paused for a brief sneer, then said, 'There have been questions raised at the highest levels of the Ministry of Magic concerning Albus Dumbledore's fitness to stay on as Headmaster of Hogwarts ... questions concerning his disastrous staff appointments, his mishandling of disruptive pupils, his mad stories about the Dark Lord having returned ...'

A nasty grin played about Voldemort's lipless mouth. 'When Harry Potter is tragically bitten and killed by one of Dumbledore's tame giant's dangerous pets, I believe these questions will be answered once and for all.'

Voldemort gave a final smirk and began hissing to Harry in Parseltongue. 'I am sending you away with this man. His son will bring you to Harry Potter. You are to bite him as you did the wizard in the cellar. After that, you will make your way back to me. Do you understand?'

'I'm to bite Harry Potter and come back to you,' repeated Harry mechanically. He neither knew nor cared how Voldemort expected him to find this place again. He was going back to Hogwarts!

'I have given Seeker his instructions,' Voldemort told Mr Malfoy. 'He has proven himself most capable of following orders promptly and reliably. Nonetheless, he will need careful looking after. He is skittish and easily frightened -- even with me, and snakes usually aren't. I suspect he may have been struck on the head at some point -- he has suffered episodes of confusion and disorientation, and that groove between his eyes isn't natural.'

Voldemort ran a finger down Harry's head, starting right where his scar would have been, had Harry been human. Harry gave an involuntary shudder.

'I am holding you personally responsible for the success of this plan, Lucius.' Voldemort's voice grew arctically cold. 'Take better care of my Aitvaras than you did of my Basilisk.'

Voldemort conjured up a cage made of green, lacquered wood and had Harry slither into it. He handed the cage and the box with the ring to Mr Malfoy, who crawled backwards on his knees to the door before standing up again.

Voldemort's study faded from Harry's view, replaced by a bedroom as large as the entire first storey of the Dursleys' house. The velvet curtains on the windows and the bed (which was big enough for Hagrid to have slept in comfortably) were a shade of red so dark as to be nearly black, with silver-grey ties and trim. A rug the same colour with a pattern of silvery lines along the borders covered most of the floor.

Mr Malfoy set Harry's cage down very gently on a marble-topped bedside table. He pulled off his mask and cloak, bundled them up and shoved the lot under the bed whilst muttering an incantation. Harry was reminded of the loose floorboard under his own bed in Privet Drive.

Mr Malfoy staggered through a door into what Harry presumed was a bathroom. Retching noises and the smell of vomit soon reached Harry's cage.

When Mr Malfoy came out, he had a small crystal phial of milky white potion in his hand. Sitting rather shakily on the edge of the bed, he tossed it down in one gulp, then curled up on top of the bedspread still fully dressed. After a while, his breathing slowed and his fearful scent diminished. He appeared to have fallen asleep.

Harry was left to his own astounded thoughts. He was scarcely able to believe his luck. Everything he had struggled so futilely to achieve all those weeks in the tank had been delivered to him on a silver platter: escape, a means of frustrating Voldemort's plans, even information of a sort to take back with him.

Voldemort himself was the heir of Slytherin; apparently Slytherin's old rival Gryffindor also had an heir. Harry couldn't see how knowing that James Potter wasn't the heir of Gryffindor would be of much use to Dumbledore, though. If only Voldemort had said who was ... He'd mentioned something about a spell ...

Then the full implications of what Harry had overheard in Voldemort's study hit him like a rogue Bludger. Voldemort had murdered Harry's father because he thought James Potter was the heir of Gryffindor. Wormtail had told him so, Wormtail and Snape ... except it wasn't true. Harry's parents had died for no reason.

A corrosive mixture of bitter rage and aching sorrow surged through Harry. Thirteen years, all for nothing ... Voldemort had been restored to his body, but no magic could bring back James and Lily Potter. Wormtail had betrayed them, not once but twice.

Harry raised his head and struck at his own coils in thwarted fury. He should have killed Wormtail when he had the chance. He should have bit him till he bled to death; he should have dragged him to the pond and drowned him. He should have eaten him if he had to. And Snape, whom Dumbledore trusted --

Mr Malfoy rolled over and murmured in his sleep.

Harry checked himself in mid-strike. If Lucius Malfoy woke and thought the snake was having some sort of fit, he might return it to Voldemort for examination. Harry dared not let that happen. Now more than ever, he had to get back to Hogwarts -- Dumbledore needed to be warned about Snape.

Harry forced himself to lie still, forced himself to take deep, steadying breaths. He mustn't dwell on his parents' deaths right now. He had to put the whole thing from his mind. He had to think of something else ... think of Hogwarts, of seeing Ron and Hermione, of playing Quidditch, of Cho Chang ...