Hogsmeade Battle Royale

Hogsmeade was deserted. It was the thirty-first of October in the year nineteen eighty-one, and the streets of the town should have been teeming with joy over Halloween, yet Hogsmeade was completely devoid of life, in every sense of the word.

The little Scottish town of Hogsmeade, of course, was a unique town in the whole of Britain, and it could easily be seen by its many colorful shops: there was Honeydukes, a massive sweets shop that sold smoking candies and levitating sherbets; an old abandoned house dubbed the Shrieking Shack that was once considered to be haunted; and even Dervish & Banges, the new magical oddities shop.

Hogsmeade was the only town in Britain that was inhabited solely by the wizarding community. It was also the favorite location for weekend holidays for the young wizards and witches of nearby Hogwarts School for Wizardry and Witchcraft. In fact, the weekend of the thirty-first of October was the last Hogsmeade trip before the winder holiday, and nearly all of the elder students of the enigmatic school had signed up to go.

And still, Hogsmeade was empty.

A man appeared in the middle of the street, so suddenly that if anyone had been around to see him appear, they would have rubbed their eyes in confusion and sworn he wasn't there a moment ago until they realize he had probably Apparated into the town, a very complicated and tricky form of magic. He was a tall, foreboding man, who, even though he was well over fifty years old, looked quite well preserved, as if being unpleasant and shady-looking caused him not to age. The man was horribly disfigured; his face was bone-white, with dark, beady scarlet eyes and the nose of a snake. He was dressed in a long, black robe with the hood pulled over his head, and as he slithered over the dead body of a girl no older than thirteen, it almost looked like he was floating above the ground.

This man's name, never dared uttered by others of his kind, was Lord Voldemort.

Turning his hideous head from one side to the other, he surveyed the damage the past weekend had inflicted upon the town. The Quidditch Supplies store seemed to have been ransacked, though unsuccessfully, as a dark boy of sixteen still held the Comet Two-Sixty flying broomstick close to his dead, bleeding body. The Apothecary had exploded again, but that was no matter; someone always seemed to build another by the next year. And, once again, the ancient inn had survived, though the Dark Lord doubted that anyone who took refuge within its walls had survived with it.

All in all, it wasn't a particularly bad Battle Royale. He had seen better ones, of course, but this wasn't terrible. He was disappointed that only one child survived; if there were more, he could slaughter them all, an activity in which he took incredible delight.

Finally reaching the inn, the Dark Lord opened the door to the stench of decaying corpses and broken trust. There were three bodies in the check-in room, and a thinned drip of blood from the wooden ceiling marked more contestants upstairs. He looked over to his left; a young couple lie in the corner, their faces frozen, twisted in fear. Their weapons were untouched on the inn's check-in desk; whoever had killed these two had deceived them, tricked the couple into believing he was a friend, and then herded them into a corner and used them for target practice.

Voldemort couldn't find it in himself not to chuckle. Very devious indeed, he thought, but you do what you must to win the game. From the body of a young man lying on the floor next to the couple, Muggle machine gun still in hand, the Dark Lord could tell that he had not stood much of a chance after he implemented his trap of death. It was a pity this boy hadn't won the Battle Royale; he would have made a wonderful addition to the Death Eater ranks, and even reminded Voldemort of that quivering, pathetic boy Wormtail, who had so recently given up his close friends, James and Lily Potter, and their young son.

Yes, the Potters...he would have to take care of those meddlesome youngsters soon. He couldn't leave such an important job to one of his minions; he would need to tend to such a...pleasant termination himself.

Perhaps after the Battle Royale commotion dies down, he'd pay the Potters a well-deserved visit.

Voldemort turned to the right, and before his eyes sat a black armchair that was as menacing as its owner. It had dangerous claws clenching their talons for feet, and two mad, gnashing skulls resting on the ends of the armrests, highly excited from all of the bloodshed. Atop the immaculate chair rested a gigantic snake, who took it upon herself to wrap around the strange skull figure on the very top of the throne that had a small, pewter snake slithering its way into the eye socket and out of the gaping mouth - the Dark Mark, the ominous sign of Lord Voldemort.

The Dark Lord smiled, baring his very un-human fangs as he sat down in the chair, which, despite the carnage lying around it, was untouched by bullets and blood. The Impervius Charm he had performed on his favorite piece of furniture so many years ago still kept it in perfect condition, even after a decade of bloody Battle Royales. He sat straight, yet comfortably, as the snake slipped down to rest on his shoulders.

Giving the beast a caressing pat on the head, he called aloud, as if to no one, "Come to me, Lucius."

Immediately, a hooded man appeared before him, once again proving that while Apparation might not be the safest mode of wizard transportation, it was surely the fastest. "My Lord?" the man asked, his voice strong yet wavering ever so slightly in the presence of the Dark Lord.

Voldemort's face held nothing short of displeasure at Lucius Malfoy's arrival. "I see you once again avoided my Battle Royale, Lucius," he hissed. "Do you not care for my little game? Is that it? Speak up!"

"I was indisposed at the time of the Gathering, my Lord," Malfoy explained. Pulling off his dark hood, he revealed a pale, pointed face, silver-white hair cropped just below his ears, and cold grey eyes that had delighted in too many murders in his time. "I had to supervise Travers in...interrogating the McKinnons." There was a glint of malice in Lucius Malfoy's eyes that implied he and Travers had done far more than simply interrogate the poor family.

"That might explain your absence from the fray this year, Lucius," Voldemort said, his cold expression never faltering. "But you were not with Travers last year as well. Or the year before." The skulls on Voldemort's chair growled as Lucius gulped nervously. "It just seems to me, my boy, that are you trying to avoid Battle Royale each year."

Lucius regained his composure. "I believe that this is a most effective way to exterminate those who might be a threat to us in the future, and I would never question your great wisdom, sir -" he took in a deep breath, "- but I have a son, my Lord: Draco. He is young, yes, but he will grow older, and..." Lucius paused again; it was very difficult to find the right persuasive words that would not land him on the wrong side of Voldemort's Killing Curse. "...I do not wish for the Malfoy bloodline to die in a Battle Royale."

Voldemort's face softened, and if he were known to be capable of it, he would have looked amused. "Is that all?" he asked, sounding disinterested. "You know very well arrangements will be made for all my loyal Death Eaters, in time. Now that's no reason -"

"You don't even know who won, do you." Lucius's voice turned bitter, and for a brief moment he forgot he was speaking to the most powerful and dangerous wizard in the world. He reached into his robe, pulling out a copy of today's Daily Prophet. "The whole thing's in the papers. The winner is a third year, sir...the winner is a third year. A boy by the name of...Weasley. William Weasley. A Gryffindor."

Any form of amusement on the Dark Lord's face faded quickly, but he remained silent. Lucius took this as a sign to continue. "He killed three Slytherins, my Lord. And one of them was Avery's son."

"I see," replied Voldemort. He said nothing further; he knew Lucius was furious, and with good reason. Avery was a very prominent Death Eater whose son was a seventh year at Hogwarts. Voldemort had promised all children of Death Eaters the chance to refrain from the Battle Royale as a token of his satisfaction with their parents. Unfortunately, that plan had fallen as swiftly as little William Weasley's sword upon Lionel Avery's skull.

"Sir, we cannot..." Lucius began, but Lord Voldemort silenced him with a wave of his hand.

"Avery was a fool." His voice was completely devoid of regret or emotion. "He was directed to instruct his son on avoiding the Gathering; information that young Avery ignored in order to win the Battle Royale for himself. It was his own son's cockiness that caused him to die."

"My Lord -"

Once again, Voldemort cut off his silver-haired minion. "Bring me the paper, Lucius," he said coldly. "Then leave me."

Warily, Lucius held out a trembling hand, clutching his copy of the Daily Prophet. Instead of the Dark Lord directly taking the paper, the large snake slithered forward and with a hostile hiss, wrapped her serpent coils around the paper. Returning to her master, the snake gave a final hiss in Lucius Malfoy's direction. With a look of disgust towards the snake, the Death Eater Disapparated from the inn as quickly as he had come.

"Well done, my pet," hissed Voldemort, in no language any human would be able to decipher. And if it were prudent for an evil overlord to be delighted, Voldemort would have been at the Daily Prophet's front page: