Dandelion

Prologue: A Meeting of the "Minds"

He impatiently drummed his fingers on the wooden table in front of him, his high-backed chair rocking in a steady beat; back, up, center, back, up, center. He was, of course, the supposedly "vanquished" Dark Lord, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, You-Know-Who, or, simply, Voldemort. At this particular time, his impatience rose in tides of crimson up his too-pale face from the collar of his deep red robes. He was waiting for his ever-loyal followers to show up for, what he hoped, would be an imaginative and creative discussion on Muggle cruelty. At their last meeting, he had sent them back to their homes with a project to design ways on creating Muggle torturing devices, or, even better, Muggle destroying devices. He hoped that by giving them this "homework" assignment, even the dimmest Death Eater would dream up an ingenious, or at least amusing, scheme.

"Pop!"

Voldemort turned his head to recognize the Death Eater who had just Apparated into the private room.

"Ahh, good evening my dear Bella." Bella inclined her head to her Lord.

"Pray tell that others are following you. I was about to believe not one of my good friends would join me..." He stood, a sign that Bella could approach him. She fell to her knees and mumbled words of praise, kissing the fringe on his robes. After a few moments, he shook her off.

"Get up. Others are arriving." And as he spoke, there were more pops to signal the arrival of more Death Eaters. Bella rose haughtily, and took a seat closest to Voldemort.

The others gathered in a cluster around the Lord, kissing his robes in turn and being shaken off in turn. Peter Pettigrew was unfortunate enough to have slobbered over the Lord's shoes, and was tortured mercilessly with the Cruciatus Curse at the flick of Voldemort's wand. The other Death Eaters cackled nastily at his ill fate. Peter was screaming, spasming onto the floor. The Death Eaters howled louder. Voldemort brought his wand back up, and the screaming ceased to be replaced by sobbing. But the spasms continued.

"Now, Peter, I have reasons for my little lessons. I had to teach you to keep your rat slobber inside your mouth. It's most impolite. Though I doubt any one of us would object if you decided to use that slobber for Dumbledore..." Voldemort gave a half smile, only one side of his mouth curling upwards. The Death Eaters laughed uproariously at his mockery of the "great" Dumbledore.

The spasms slowed, turning into a slight twitching. Most of the Death Eaters had turned to talk amongst themselves, all waiting for Voldemort's cue to begin the meeting. Once Peter had stopped his tremors to only a slight tremble every few minutes, he sat down in the last chair, farthest from the Lord. He sat there, cowering, not looking at Voldemort, for the entire meeting. Voldemort settled down into his own chair, fingertips touching the opposite one. The room was silent; not one of the Death Eaters moved an inch, and they even made an effort to manage their breathing volume. Except Peter, of course, who was failing at trying to control his twinges.

"Ah, now," Voldemort said silkily, relaxing deeper into his plush chair. "I believe I gave all of you, my loyal followers, a, homework assignment last time we met for class." His mouth curled up again at his own humor. Few other Death Eaters followed suit with their own laughs, a little late and a little too loud. Some cracked pained smiles, and the dimmer ones, (Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott), just stared stonily at him, noticing nothing.

He waved the feeble laughter that was there away, making the room almost as silent as it had been when he spoke before.

"Back to business," he said softly. "I believe I requested of you to come up with some Muggle brutality or annihilation devices." His nostrils flared at Crabbe, Goyle, and Nott, who were dearly confused about what he was talking about. He gave a heaving sigh of pain at their stupid natures, and continued in an exasperated tone, with mounting anger; "Hurting or killing a lot of Muggles. My, could you lot get a lot thicker? It's amazing you have had children...your poor wives...Anyway, do you get it now?" Voldemort twirled his wand in his fingers, (a habit since boyhood), his red eyes narrowed, making it obvious what would happen if they did not "get it". Goyle started to shrug, but Crabbe hit him, and all three nodded.

"Good." The Dark Lord said in his usual, dangerously soft tone.

"Now, did anyone have a problem with this assignment?"

Goyle began to raise his hand, but Crabbe elbowed him, and after a moment of staring at each other, the slightly raised palm laid back down onto the table.

"Good." He said again.

"Alright then? So how about we go around the table and, ah, share our ideas. Sharing your homework gets you credit." Voldemort said in an impression of a school-marm. This caused more amusement than his other comment.

Bellatrix Black was impatient to share her idea. She knew hers was the best, and of course the Dark Lord would approve and make her put her plans into action immediately. It was as simple as that. She would go first probably, if he used alphabetical order as in the last meeting. But as impatient as she was to share, she also wanted to hear the feeble ideas of her fellow deceased consumers*. She wanted to save the best for last, and ho! Was hers the best. It had taken most of her time to toy with imaginative killing ways until she finally came up with hers. She had cradled the idea in her mind as a mum would a newborn babe. When she came across any scrap of paper, she wrote it and re-writ it, revised and modified it to become a killing machine in words.

And then how to make it! After many hours and days of no sleep, racking her brain for theories, she had finally considered a hypothesis that might actually work. She hadn't tried it yet, of course, the potion and the spell that adjoined to it were difficult, and on the slight chance ('Slight? There isn't a chance!' Bella had thought proudly) that Voldemort did not like it ('Impossible!'), why would she risk blowing her cover to gain such difficult-to-get items that were certainly among most of the rarest items in the world? No, she told herself, once he approves of it, (How could he not?), he will use his magic to gain the items...She didn't have the strength nor powers to ever hope to gain those ingredients.

So her eyes gleamed with anticipation when Voldemort started talking about their thoughts on Muggle woe.

"Now," he said, staring at each and every one of them with his crimson eyeballs.

"Let us mix it up a bit. It shall be a tad of fun. I'll just point my wand at any of you at random, and then you'll feel a tidbit of a shock, a smidgen painful, yes, but savor the pain. Just think that it's for the good of pureblood children everywhere." He smiled a fang-toothed smile at them. Some smiled halfheartedly back. He closed his eyes and pointed. A zap and a scream emitted from the wizard Rookwood. He sat, taken aback from the sudden shock.

Voldemort bared his teeth in what could be considered a smile. "Oops. I might have put a little of the Cruciatus Curse in that spell there...No matter. Have you a plan?" He waved his wand a little, discharging several red sparks in the form of snakes that made Rookwood jump.

"Or do you need to be punished?" He smirked.

Rookwood, in a haste to show Voldemort his idea, leapt from his seat and bowed. Eager to return to the remote safety of his seat, he hurried through his presentation, leaving his mind free of protection.

"Y-y-yes, Lord. Of course. My idea. Yes." Voldemort leaned back into his chair, his head resting on his hand and a bored expression on his face.

"Well, you see, I had the idea that-" Something similar to a seizure on the floor, and shrieks of pain interrupted his keen beginning. He was surprised to find it was himself on the ground.

"Fool!" Voldemort was standing now, flames in his already scarlet eyes. "You left your mind easy to my Legilimens! Lucky that I was bored already with your presentation and decided to probe your mind! Luckier still that no Dumbledore member was trying to pierce the brains of the Death Eaters at this time, as they have been known to do! Or they would have found many things useful to their cause, possibly enough to drive us out of hiding and destroy us before we find a stronghold! And your idea? Horribly thought out; you probably thought of it just now. Please, you believe we could ever entice the goblins to join our side? No money in the world (though they are that greedy) would make them join our side after the murdering of that prominent Alacgaster goblin family. The most prominent gold lender of the goblins! Do you know how much money they lost with that murder? Billions of galleons! And was it not you who was in control of that murder? If I make no mistake, which I do not." He went on ranting for about another minute, totally out of character, and was just about on the breaking point of Rookwood, whose eyes were bulging like a squished bullfrog's, when he stopped. He then slipped back into his dangerously-toned self.

"No...I don't think I'll kill you. At least not yet. For I have far too little followers as it is, and it really wouldn't do to have you dead. But one more slip-up like this...." He trailed off. Rookwood, his eyes watering, and his body shaking, holding his heart, was breathing heavily, knowing how close he had come to the edge of death.

"You are merciful, Lord, you are wondrous!" He praised in a wheezy voice. "Thank you!"

"Save your sucking-up for when I'm about to about to kill you." Voldemort growled and turned his wand to another.

"Malfoy!" He barked. Malfoy straightened in his high-backed chair.

"Lord?" He answered with a slight quaver in his voice.

"You next!"

"Of course." Malfoy stood gracefully and bowed to his Lord, carefully blocking his mind off from Voldemort's superior, interrogating Legilimens.

"From my ludicrous time working in the Ministry, which is, as you know, destabilizing itself from the inside. From my aid." He added smugly.

"We didn't come for Current Events class." Bella retorted to the smug little blonde boy. He wilted visibly, glowering.

"Anyway, back to my informational speech. I heard that Muggle-fool Arthur Weasley, (must have been in Dumbledore's pants), going on about "flanethrowfers". There are supposedly deadly Muggle weapons used by their "C.Y.A" to dissemble riots. They are like "gums", (black wand-like things that "buleets" come out that Muggles use to kill each other), with fire that comes out of the end instead of the "buleets"." He stood beaming at the other Death Eaters. Most looked at him with a raised eyebrow. He sighed in annoyance.

"At any rate, my plan is to magic their "flanethrowfers" and make them turn on the Muggle who uses them. And as their "C.Y.A." is their main defensive team, they would have no defense, and would therefore destroy themselves in the chaos." He looked quite darn proud of himself. In less than two seconds time, he, like Rookwood, was writhing on the floor, screeching. This time, Voldemort stayed in his seat, wand pointed lazily at Malfoy. In between sobs he managed, "Lord...what...did...I...do?"

"Lazy fool. You obviously were to vain to actually hear everything Arthur Weasley said, thinking, 'Ooo, I'm too important for youuuu'. And that resulted in your pain right now. He was quite obviously speaking of the United States of America, where the C.I.A. use guns that shoot bullets. And the C.I.A is not even close to being a quarter of the American defense. I don't know as much about the American country as some, and I don't even know if the C.I.A is even a defensive department. And they don't use flamethrowers. I don't even know who uses flamethrowers. Your idea is ridiculous, sit back down." He lowered his wand again. Malfoy staggered to gain his balance, among sniggers, and sat, still clearly dazed from his long exposure to the curse.

"Dear, dear me. I hope I don't have to use my wand on any other of my brilliant students." He smirked. "Goyle, your turn."

After a couple more tortured Death Eaters, and still so liked plans, Bella had still to present her maniacal campaign.

"My precious "clique", can none of you actually provide me with a solid plan? Must I cause pain to you after only few words have stained your lips? Bella, you may present. I see those smug looks you throw after each of our "posse" has failed to offer a steady thought on the subject. You should shed some light on the issue."

Bella stood proudly, a smirk playing across her face.

"Of course, milord." She bowed deeply.

"When I was a young girl, I enjoyed playing in the par-" Malfoy, who had regained his swagger, cut her off.

"Really? You were a girl?" The other Death Eaters chuckled.

Ignoring him, she went on; "As I was saying, I enjoyed playing in the park with my cousins and frien-"

Malfoy interrupted again with snorts of laughter.

"Y-y-you had friends? That's a hoot!" There were tears in his eyes.

Bellatrix Lestrange went on again strongly, determined not to be deterred in her glory.

"...and with the girls in my group, we would go off to pick flowers."

From within her robes she brought out her wand. Mumbling some words she conjured a single yellow flower lying in the middle of the table. A-

"Dandelion." Bella said with confidence.

"They grow wild everywhere. A nuisance to adults, a joy to children. It attracts groups of all ages. A dangerous weapon in the hands of the right people." Her eyes gleamed.

"And are we the right people."