Chapter 35: Crimes of the Order of the Phoenix

No one had likely ever attempted to approach Malfoy's curse the way I did. From my muggle life, I vaguely remembered the existence of in vitro fertilization. Now I knew from muggle newspapers and medical journals: the world's first IVF pregnancy was reported in 1973 by a research team at Monash University in Australia. Following this, the same team produced nine live births by the end of 1981.

I paid them a visit where they received certain mental influences and additional funding. Part of their equipment was copied at a Death Eater base, and they now worked second shifts for me under Imperius.

Lucius provided the sperm and the blood. I borrowed the eggs from muggles and began raising embryos and homunculi. The results were revolting, most of them completely non-viable. The rates of defects might have been lower had I not accelerated their development with Dark Magic, but I what else could I do, wait nine months? They will not live longer than two months once they are done!

It was far from easy to create even a single homunculus. But Tom was an accomplished Dark wizard with an excellent organization- the Death Eaters. I worked as Elena, with Rosier assisting me under the Dark Lord's orders. More precisely, I was charging the homunculi through him, his source and our concentration camp. And a fresh batch of recruits were helping to the best of their ability: hand me this, go fetch that, don't puke, clean up…

Everything was logical: many wondered what jobs the Lord's student performed for him. Here, look as much as you want. I won't show you anything more sensitive.

Rosier took his orders very hard: obeying Elena, muggles outside their cages. But once he saw hundreds of homunculi… No, he did not fall in love with Elena and did not forgive her past insults. But legilimency showed he developed a certain… begrudging appreciation.

Creating homunculi was illegal for a good reason. I doubt anyone ever produced this many in such short time. If I did it by the old, pre-Statute methods, I would have left behind a mountain of corpses. But why waste a woman's life when I only needed her eggs? Higher rate of defects? We compensated for that with numbers: women produced eggs every month, and muggles did a fine job at collecting them.

The fetuses all fared well. From a medical perspective, they were on full life support: no heartbeat, lungs on ventilator, brains fast asleep. As far as the curse was concerned, they were not alive, so it did not touch them.

The homunculi, however… I was examining one from the least defective lot. The creature resembled a mangled baby Quasimodo the color of rotting meat and stared back at me with the two red pits it had for eyes. Legilimency said it was in pain by merely existing. Just to think, some people willingly tried to cheat death by moving from one homunculus body to the next…

The history of magical arms races and attempts to escape death was full of pages only barely better than horcruxes. Many Dark rituals deserved their bans. In my opinion, experiments with homunculi fell into the top three most deserving. Suffering indescribable pain, victims of insane wizards occasionally gave birth to creatures that could not be considered living beings, much less humans. I was smart enough to stick the homunculi into test tubes instead of women. Only today, four of them turned into something beyond all limits of mutation… We promptly killed them and took a long time cleaning the site with charmed fire and specialized acids. Just in case.

With magic, I turned the vessel to better study the creature I have previously seen only on black and white engravings. It was grotesque. A hairless, sexless body with unnatural… skin? No ears on its head. Mouth shaped as though it was constantly smiling made it look all the more disturbing.

I pointed my wand at one of the muggles. He picked up a vial of unicorn blood with tweezers, drew some with a pipette and open the jar with the homunculus. The creature became agitated. They had no minds of their own but did exhibit some primitive animal instincts. Sensing the blood, the kitten-sized homunculus licked its face with a long, covered in sores tongue and started jumping up the walls. As soon as the muggle dropped some blood, it calmed down, greedily caught the blood with its tongue, then licked itself clean. A few drops made it swell up to the point of resembling a ball with tiny protruding head, arms and legs. Its pleased grin turned even more disgusting…

Time to find a couple more large ones for testing. I have been drawing runes on their bodies and killing them to see what methods result in the best response for the ritual. So far, the two leading options were piercing the heart and cutting the throat.

I have never been squeamish. But perhaps Lucius was right…

Then again, I had no choice but to use homunculi created from Lucius's blood and hair. The rituals I performed with these little monsters paralleled the ritual meant for Lucius's body. I could create many homunculi but only had a handful of Malfoys… And Malfoys owed me a lot, including money!

By the way, I'd better get some biomaterial from a couple of other wizards. Sirius Black headed the list…

For the moment, I had more urgent matters to attend to. Everything was ready for Diana Crouch's healing ritual. There was a problem: Tom had never performed this particular ritual. But he completed much more difficult ones, so I was nearly sure of success. Sadly, there was no option to practice on someone else- too rare of an illness. My weakened Dark Magic made me afraid of embarrassing myself. To prevent it, I added some elements that should strengthen the ritual while looking like my whims on the surface…

I considered delegating it to someone else but decided against it. Both Crouches loved this woman; this way they would owe me. Besides, I needed to occasionally demonstrate my love for Dark Magic and murder. So I should not only conduct the ritual personally but also invite all the radicals: Rosier, the Carrows, Mulciber, Travers, Rowle and Yaxley. And the Lestranges were going to assist me.

There was one more person present. Bound in chains and covered with concealment charms, Pandora Lovegood stood in the corner. I was curious how the entire process would look in her "astral sight." I gained my own "clairvoyant," a live detector… I already had her witness a Dementor's kiss. It was fascinating. I at last began to understand what Dementors meant when they tried to describe the process of consuming a soul.

The Lestranges had already completed the drawings on the floor and filled certain spots with fragments of magical animals: winged horse, thestral, two-horned boomslang… There was even one live thestral. In the center of it all lay unconscious Diana Crouch. A prisoner Auror was chained to the floor next to her. Each of the Lestranges stood in their respective corner with a restrained but conscious muggle. The perimeter of our "ritual rectangle" was lined with sheep- alive, but not for long.

Dark rituals could be roughly divided into two types. Some hinged on the total volume of energy and usually took a large number of sacrifices. Others worked with very few sacrifices but required them to undergo very specific preparations and die in a certain way. The Cordner-Verner syndrome blocking ritual belonged to the latter.

It was time to woo the crowd.

"My loyal followers! I gathered you here today to witness a remarkable spectacle. Ignorant fools are trying to ban Dark Magic. But today I, Lord Voldemort, the heir of Salazar Slytherin, will be using Dark Magic to heal this pureblood witch whose life would otherwise be lost! And it will cost nothing but the lives of these lowly creatures!" and many similar words for seven more minutes.

I was speaking and once again thinking about magic. Magic was very odd. I tried to organize everything into a system, but it refused to fit. Take, for instance, killing someone to charge a spell. Dark Magic, ritual sacrifice subsection. Everything seemed simple. But then why was the ritual of blood protection, where a mother sacrifices herself for her child, considered Light Magic? Light blood magic? Based on human sacrifice? I would write it off as nonsense propaganda, but I learned it from an old book I trusted, and everything else written in it was definitely true. Did it all really come down to motive? Seeing as self-sacrifice to create blood needles was Dark!

For myself, I thought up a simple analogy: if you always walked North, you would eventually reach a point when walking in any direction leads South.

Yes, Dark Magic could heal, albeit contingently. For example, it was possible to rid yourself of a cold by breaking your own leg. Not surprisingly, that ritual never gained popularity. On the other hand, healing a cold by killing a hoofed animal or two was once very common. Dark Magic always attracted those who desired power. On the surface, it seemed to be the answer to all questions. Not strong enough to perform a spell or a ritual? Just kill someone to power it. And in principle, it worked.

But putting it into practice came with its own problems: the more massive the sacrifice, the harder it was to gather and control the released energy. It usually ended in a big boom… A volcano eruption, a tsunami… And in case of battle spells, everything was even more interesting… Tom's Dark Arts mentor once told him a story, not sure how true, about a group of very talented blood specialists who created and performed a ritual to become immortal. That was how vampires first came into existence. Technically, they were immortal: no one has ever known a vampire die of natural causes. They became fast and strong. The only magic they retained was blood, and to a lesser degree mind and transformation. In return, they received a thirst for blood as well as vulnerability to sunlight, fire, silver, Light Magic, and, for some reason, aspen. So, relaxing on the job was a bad idea.

Having finished my speech, I gave the signal to begin.

The Lestranges started to read the spell words, periodically burning sheep and boomslang skin. It would look absolutely meaningless to a layman, but in magical sight every animal death made the runes glow brighter, and every burned magical creature part changed the runes' color. They would go through the entire spectrum before turning black at the end.

I used legilimency on the prisoner and canceled the the silencing charm.

"Curse you! I'm not afraid of you!" he screamed and tried to spit in my face.

No, I was not an idiot. The prisoner had to be conscious: the ritual ingredients included… a scream of a newly insane man. To this end, we found an Auror among the prisoners. He should last the necessary amount of time and only go insane at the very end. I also wanted to use this opportunity to test a new concept: driving him over the edge with hallucinations rather than pure pain.

With one motion of the wand, I poured a number of pain-amplifying potions down his throat and hit him with the escalating pain curse so favored by Dolohov.

After screaming a bit, the Auror started to rant at me:

"You'll never win! You'll pay for everything!" and more of the like.

I fed him feelings of despair and anxiety with legilimency, similarly to my mental battle with Dumbledore. Except this was much easier, even with Frank Longbottom's wand. Damn that Diagon fight for forcing me to flash my wavy wand with Nagini's scale as Elena's!

Speaking to the prisoner was not strictly necessary, but I needed to impress the Death Eaters in attendance.

"Kill a thousand without leaving witnesses," my voice echoed around the hall. "What would you accomplish? Who would fear you? Who would respect and obey you? No, kill a single person and leave their body for the world to see! String them up high, horribly mutilated, bleeding out. And then… disappear. Who will know? Everyone. Who will fear? Everyone. Who will obey? Anyone! People… They have powerful imaginations. Kill a thousand, and they will despise you. Kill a million, and they will line up to fight you. But take the life of one lone victim, and they will begin seeing monsters and demons in every shadow! Kill a dozen, and they will wake up screaming from nightmares. They will not hate, they will only fear. This is the path to obedience. People are nothing more than primitive, blabbering animals… And we benefit from keeping them this way."

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw approval on Alecto's and Sebastian's faces. Good, everyone must think Lord Voldemort is on their side.

I hit the prisoner with a shock curse and added the Cruciatus. He would have long lost consciousness had it not been for the potions. I proceeded to burn out his eyes, then pierced the sockets with hot transfigured needles. I would rather finish this up faster, but just like some potions required a set number of stirrings or crushing beetle shells a particular way, rituals too had rules for processing the material and charging the shapes with magic. Nothing personal, just business…

The mangled flesh surrounding the eye sockets swelled in angry red scars. The wizard howled at the top of his lungs. Bellatrix better not try to kill him for insulting me. I had expressly warned her that the Cruciatus or death would only bring him relief.

"What's the matter, can't you see me?" I mocked and laughed with Riddle's mad voice. Because the radicals must be sure of the Lord's love of murder and torture. Why yes, I adore eviscerating everyone personally! See, the Lord is just like you, only more talented.

"My eyes… they're gone!" he wailed. Oh, and what did you expect, a slap on the wrist?

"Ah, yes," I said, listening to Bella's sonorous laughter. "If you have not joined me, then you are blind and don't need eyes."

He tried to cast something, but the chains securely held him in place. They would hold even me, and he was full of potions to boot.

"Why are you doing this?" the prisoner's voice rose in pitch, his outrage outweighing the fear for his life.

"What do you know of… Dark Magic?" I said in a breathy, smoldering tone, as if confessing my love to a woman, and pulled out a ritual knife. The Lestranges were doing a great job, the sheep were almost all gone. They would then kill the thestral and move on to the humans.

"Dark Magic is evil!" he answered. "Slytherin died and so will you!"

"Every Dark wizard came ever closer to immortality. I am the first who has walked this path to the end. You know nothing of Dark Magic, how it feels to melt into her embrace… See the flickering lights… Hear her voice…" I diligently parodied a madman. I was surrounded by people who would not judge me for these views. And their vows won't let them tell anyone…

"You're crazy! Completely crazy!" the Auror tried to spit, gathering saliva with his unruly tongue. But acceleration charms made me much faster. The ritual knife softly whistled as it slashed through the air. The man spat out his severed tongue with a howl.

"Now you'll be quieter," I grumbled, waiting for the screams to die down and give way to wet gurgling. "And pay more attention. You can resist, writhe, try to escape. Your brain may be gripped by unimaginable pain, but you will not be able to turn off your ears, my friend. You will hear me out. And you will feel… feel everything…"

The time for Crucios has passed. Tom had a plethora of experience with knives. Not in combat but precisely when the victim could not resist. I found a comfortable grip and started to cut. Separate strips of meat from arms and legs. Slash the pliant flesh with artistic strikes, freeing the blood. Cleave the ligaments of the knees and shoulders, groin and ankles. Carve out shapes, patterns and runes on the stomach and chest. Slowly peel off the skin. Cut deep grooves into buttocks and back. Cut, cut, cut…

And all that time, I continued speaking and filling his mind with images. Visuals, tactile sensations, smell, the full cocktail of despair… Ignoring the screaming, wheezing, moaning and fitful twitching.

What did I tell and show him? Everything expected of the Dark Lord. I described all that awaited him and reinforced it with legilimency. The potions made the visions nearly real…

I spoke of darkness that so often scared little children. Of nightmares born from a child's vivid imagination. Of boogeymen and spider deities, of witches with scissor-shaped hands and writhing snakes. Of eyeless Dementor faces with wet, insatiable lips that floated to suck out all the light in the world: first happiness, then the soul. I showed him the Dementor's kiss over and over, broadcasting the feelings of execution victims.

I spoke of horrors that tormented people. Of compulsion to mutilate oneself in the name of God. Of blind faith and family perversions that twisted the soul. Of pain for which there was always a reason.

And continued to cut, cut, cut.

I spoke of nightmares that followed people into their waking lives. Of knives in the dark and violence in broad daylight. Of butchers and marauders, monsters next to whom many-headed giants looked kind. Of Fiendfyre closing in from every direction, quicksand filling the lungs, tightening noose rope… Tom had plenty of experiences, and my assistants shared some of their own. And cut. Cut. Cut…

He would be long dead, but stopping someone from bleeding out was simple for a blood master. It mirrored an old muggle execution method: death by a thousand cuts.

I raised my hand, and Bellatrix killed the thestral. New energy spilled into the drawing, connecting with the energy that was already flowing from the prisoner in ornate ripples.

I spoke of fire, of Dementors and Antipatronuses gathering into giant clouds that cover the sky. Of wandering madness brought by the merciful Cruciatus, of Dark Magic wounds that never heal. Of basilisk venom. Of horrors, nightmares, poisons…

Tom had not put so much effort into a single person in years, and for me it was the very first experience of such prolonged and varied torture. Destroying the man's flesh while keeping him from dying and showing him horrible images while keeping him from crossing the brink of insanity tired me out.

As I understood this ritual, the horror of the torture directly affected the quality of the scream and therefore the quality of healing. I could not afford to risk a relapse. It would birth rumors that the Lord has "gone soft," could not work Diana properly. I depended on my reputation much like a politician. And besides, I had long wanted to measure necroenergy from non-magical torture… I would just need to subtract the values of the spells I used today…

I tore the flesh and splintered the bones. The prisoner no longer looked human. Carrow stared at me the way Bellatrix usually did. Rosier was smiling at me with Dumbledore's trademark all-forgiving expression.

At last, I felt it: soon not even I would be able stop the victim from slipping into insanity. More than anything, it reminded of the feeling of an unavoidably approaching orgasm… At my signal, the Lestranges simultaneously finished off the four muggles they have been torturing to the best of their ability. New streams of energy rushed towards the prisoner.

Incredibly, the man was still holding on. And so, I began showing him my own memories. He saw a horde of acromantulas, wave after wave of invincible eight-legged terror trampling the Aurors… In association with soullessness, he saw a lake of inferi waiting in the wings… He saw the results of my latest experiments: breeding of chimeras, effects of magical creature blood on people, and especially the results of raising homunculi. He saw people, misshapen and wrong, mutilated in ways no mutations or radiation could ever compare. People with tentacles and claws in place of hands, compound eyes, multiple extra joints, eyes sprouting on arms, legs and other unexpected places. People covered in runes that made his eyes hurt…

"It's not true! It can't be true! " he cried in his thoughts, trying to banish the images away.

"Do you honestly believe your thoughts, you blind fool?" I asked. "Look closer… Do you not see that these horrors are so great they cannot be imaginary? They all exist in this world… You simply have yet to experience them…"

The only answer I got was wails of despair. The Auror went limp on the floor, muttering something…

And then he broke out in a primal scream of Fear. Scream that would scare a banshee… The dam collapsed, the kaleidoscope of visions took control of his thoughts, the voices burst through his ears and sank their sharp claws deep into his mind. When the scream reached its unbearable final crescendo, I passed through the sticky dregs of blood and excrement and plunged the knife into his heart.

The runes turned charcoal-black. The man's body began to transform into a dark splotch that in magical sight looked like something between an Antipatronus, a Dementor and an Obscurus.

"I, Lord Voldemort, by the way of sacrificial blood, sacrificial pain, sacrificial mind, and sacrificial life, heal this woman from the Cordner-Verner syndrome!"

Then came the hard part. The cloud did not want to obey. It did not want to heal. It only wanted to dissolve… ideally, everything. The strain of it felt like holding a heavy weight in outstretched arms. The cloud slowly drifted towards the unconscious woman. One mistake- and Crouch would be left without a mother. Two mistakes- and the cloud would begin crushing everything around it, though the Death Eaters would likely fight it off or escape.

But no. As it approached Diana, her body shout out dark cords. The cloud was simply sucking something out of her. This was the standard principle of healing most Dark curses: like attracting like. Except, the process was usually much simpler.

Once the cloud absorbed all of the blackness, it wanted to swallow her body. I did not let it, feeling like wrangling a raging Fiendfyre and Twilight Flame at once, like putting liquor in a drunk's mouth and ordering not to swallow… The cloud finally relented and floated to the side. And then it looked as if someone pulled out the drain plug: the darkness started to suck into itself in a whirlpool until it disappeared. It was over. Only strong Dark traces in the room and on Diana Crouch betrayed what had happened.

"Edward, check Diana," I said, trying my best to look nonchalant and not at all tired.

Edward waved his wand around the woman. Touched her with an amulet, then cut his hand… What, did it not work?

"Your conclusion, Edward?"

"My Lord… She is… healthy," he said.

"Was the blocking a success? Is her life no longer in danger?" I clarified.

"Milord.. there is no block. She is just healthy. There are no traces of her ever having the syndrome!" Lestrange exclaimed in awe.

I might have gone a little overboard… But it was for the best: I could tell her I healed her with Light Magic.

I quickly checked the woman myself. Yes, everything was right.

"Behold the true power of Lord Voldemort!" I proclaimed. Not quite resurrecting the dead, but still impressive.

After talking everyone's ears off, handing Diana over to Edward's care and summoning Barty Jr. to visit her, I went home to relax.

Why was she cured? Was it my own merits or Voldemort simply never tried putting an earnest effort into healing anyone? Probably the latter…

After resting a bit, I measured the gained necroenergy. A lot… The ritual must be "dirty." Oh well. At least the sight of a brutally murdered Auror should reduce the number of those willing to fight me. They won't be able to sweep it under the rug: my people had orders to leave the body in a public place, and a truthful expert report on the cause of his death was already being printed abroad.

I entered Pandora's mind to watch the ritual in "Lovegood sight." Everything was bizarre. Some glowing shapes vaguely resembling wrackspurts swarmed the reddish haze that pulsated in tune with the victim's heartbeat… The black smoke swallowing him looked almost identical to a Dementor's kiss. When the prisoner died, the air softly rippled like a pond next to a windmill, and then… She was describing some shades that dropped something and carried the prisoner's dying scream away. In her words, "carried it beyond the edge of eternity… Something heard the cry and came… Once the food was gone, it left…"

I crawled out of Pandora's mind drenched in cold, sticky sweat. No, she was just insane. Or, to put it more mildly, she incorrectly interpreted what she saw. There was no such thing as "Living Darkness." What I had done was nothing more than siphon Dark Magic out of Diana, akin to removing steel shavings from a heap of hay with a magnet. At most, I could maybe entertain the idea that I summoned an animal from another world. An animal with very distinct appetites… Wasn't that what demonologists used to practice before they were finally eradicated?

… Maybe I could find or create a creature that fed on necroenergy? But what if it started to breed?

Speaking of which, there was one more thing I wanted to test.

I soon stood in the Lestranges' training rink, its wards set to maximum. I recalled every detail of healing Diana and raised my wand to conjure an Antipatronus. Smoke poured out. I waited for it to gather into a thestral, but it instead took the shape of an Obscurus. And it was noticeably stronger than my old thestral…

Alastor Moody

Alastor was once again cursing everyone out. The changes to the Auror and Order training programs only passed after direct pressure from Dumbledore! Took them long enough, but they finally increased the trainees' hours from 12 to 14 per day and decreased the off days from two to one per week. Drink more potions, you snots! And practice brewing while you're at it. While you sleep, Dark wizards are training!

He has long been arguing that they should issue a Time-Turner to every Auror. "This many Time-Turners don't exist!" they said. Well, make more! But it was all right. Albus secretly told him that once Scrimgeour is elected Minister, Alastor will be promoted to lead the DMLE! Then Alastor will write himself an authorization for a Time-Turner!

He did not need legilimency to know what everybody thought of him: senile old man. But he wasn't crazy!

After meeting Voldemort's horned serpent, which allegedly was last seen in Europe centuries ago, he dug into books on extinct monsters, then personally interrogated a couple of historians and professor Kettleburn. None of them were at fault. When he started training his subordinates in the new spells, they looked at him like he was an idiot. Even Kingsley! Ungrateful bastards! What would you do if a Purple Humtuza ambushed you from around the corner and you didn't know the spells against it?! What Humtuza? They supposedly went extinct some time during the Sumerian era. No one dared to say it to his face, but Alastor had no doubts: they did not believe him! They probably all wanted to send him to a "well-earned rest" if it weren't for the war.

If you searched for Dark wizards and did not find any, there could only be two reasons: you were bad at searching or they were good at hiding. But that was all right. Alastor had the authority to organize frequent unscheduled searches. And now, cussing under their breath, the Aurors were making a sweep of the London metro. People began to disappear here. Alastor knew it was all Voldemort's fault! This time, they will find evidence. Search better, rookies! And constant vigilance!

"Alastor… There's nothing here… Our shift starts in an hour, the guys should get some sleep," Kingsley complained.

"Drink more potions. You've only been awake for three days, Pepperup toxicity does not kick in until the seventh."

All right… They found nothing again. They may have no direct evidence, but they will come back here. Next time with backup, officially reported as another random search.

And the wizards disapparated.

The creature that escaped from a Death Eater lab and was once a Boggart

When it first became self-aware, it found itself in a strange room, chained down by a strange drawing. Despite lacking a physical body, the creature was somewhat sentient, though it heavily relied on its animal cunning and ancestral memories. It knew it was in no position to rebel. It ate and waited. And listened. For some reason, it was alone. Completely alone…

The ancestors' memories said wizards should not look like this. They had strange magic, and they were bewilderingly careless: none had shields against its kind. And what were they holding in their hands? Not staves… But they worked! The runes were different too… And there were no pyramids! Then where did they kill one another? Where lived the powerful wizards who must be avoided?

The creature did not rush. It gathered information, though it did not know the meaning of the word. It almost attempted an escape but reconsidered. From time to time, it saw a powerful wizard who could defeat it without specialized charms, especially while it was restrained. The creature saw the entire tree of probabilities several seconds into the future. It knew that if it tried to break free, its jailers will call for backup in every possible scenario. And so it waited.

One time it felt a strong magic eruption. Very strong. From the experiences of past generations, it knew this meant all powerful wizards were distracted.

The creature made a break for it. Freed from the binds, it started tasting the magic around it. It was in an unknown place with dozens of small sources of power and three large ones. But most of all it was surprised by the number of people. There was a lot of them, a truly gigantic number! Some were even flying in huge metal boxes without magic!

The wizards' numbers were very few in comparison, but the world had changed into something unrecognizable. Perhaps now non-magicals were dangerous as well… Or had ways to quickly call on their wizard owners for help in case of a direct attack.

The creature's first desire was food. Some sentient prey, best of all human flesh and magic. Both were abundant all around. But the hunger was tolerable. It did not attack immediately.

It focused on the three large sources of magic, it simply felt them like some animals sensed north. Technically, any of the three would do… But one of them had a large number of people around, so that was where it decided to go. The generational experience said that if ten disappeared among a hundred, everyone would look for them; ten disappearing among a hundred thousand would not be missed.

The creature made its ghostly flesh maximally thin and seeped underground. It flowed through the dirt like water, ignoring the hunger. Secrecy was more important. Three days later it reached the place humans called London. It was a perfect place! A luxurious system of underground tunnels to hide in, especially since it could become invisible to non-magicals. The creature chose its victims carefully, and several disappearances have not alarmed anyone.

The situation with magic was worse. It feared coming any closer to the large source because the building on top of it stored many dangerous items within the lowest level. The creature had to satisfy itself with crumbs that barely let it grow.

Then, wizards began searching for it. Their numbers were great, but they acted foolishly. None of them had defenses against its kind! It was about to make a snack of the obtuse hunters when it noticed a one-legged one with a strange locator artifact. He had the specialized shields against it and cast the correct spells to detect it. And even though his work was sloppy, as if he did not quite understand what to do and was repeating something he only heard in passing, it was a problem. In every possible future, it had no time to defeat him before he called for help. The reinforcements included a powerful one who at first had no defenses against it, but then the strongest shield instantly appeared! And he held something very strange in his hand… But the creature knew there could not be too many like him.

What could it do? Run farther? Lack of food would do it in more surely than any enemy. If it ate, the wizards would come back. The creature knew how annoying they were: killing a couple was easy, but new ones would just keep coming… Then, its instincts took over. Nest… It needed a nest. This place had enough magic to feed the offspring. But then they must be protected…

If Voldemort read the same books Moody had recently read, he would know they created a very dangerous abomination. Its original name had been long lost to history, but the Aztecs once called it Tlahuilopochtli…