Into the Darkness 

All The King’s Men

Her skinny, bone-like fingers clenched tightly around the old, dirt bars that held her in her cell. Tears streaked down her face as she gasped loudly, having screamed her vocal chords raw.

The sound of heavy boots caught her ear as she leaned closely to the bars again. Her pale face seemed to glow in the dark, looking more like a skull than a living person. Her large, pale eyes took in the sight of two men garbed in fine black robes walking down the hallway between the rows of cells.

As they drew closer to her the woman’s arms shot out and grabbed the hem of the shorter one’s robes and screamed, “Please! Let me out! Let me out! Please, they’ll kill me!”

He kicked her hand back and snapped, “Disgusting half-breed. You’ll do well if death is all you think you’re going to get.” He pulled out his wand and with a quick wave of it and a quiet enchantment she was thrown backwards and started screaming in pain.

Replacing his wand back to it's holder the two continued down the stone corridor, ignoring her screams as they seemed to dim with distance.

“I am impressed Draco,” the older man said. “Few could ask for such a noble son to uphold their family line. I have heard rumors that the Lord is thinking of making you a second-in-command.”

“Next to his ever silent daughter?” Draco Malfoy asked his father in an amused tone. “Or one of her seconds or her second’s seconds.”

Lucius Malfoy frowned at that before saying, “None of that Draco. We must hurry to the hall before the Lord becomes enraged at our lateness.”

“His daughter will be later than us father.”

“Never,” Lucius snapped. “Mock the princess. You know that mocking any royal, be it our King, Queen or Princess, is punished by death.”

Draco stared at the floor and started mumbling to himself, but said nothing aloud. They continued down the dark corridor, Draco listening to the loud screams outside as people were herded around like cattle.

Finally they reached a large set of doors, which opened without being touched.

“Ahh Lucius, and this must be Draco,” Voldemort hissed from his spot at the head of the table. “Just on time. Sit down.”

Draco left himself shift nervously under the glare of the King. He noticed the figure to the right of the King turn slightly and seemed to look at him. Draco knew that this petite figure was the Queen, a simple accessory to Voldemort, but he would never say such a thing.

They sat in silence before a sickly sweet voice said, “Highness, may I ask what we are waiting for?”

“My daughter will be attending,” Voldemort snapped. “Dare you question me Bellatrix?’

Bellatrix Lestrange looked at her hands before saying, “No milord. I apologize.”

A moment later the doors flew open with much more force then they did for Lucius and Draco, and another darkly cloaked figure appeared in the room, followed by a taller, obviously male figure.

“What news brings you here in such a flurry?” Voldemort said slowly.

The figured bowed before him before saying, “My spy tells me of new mudbloods in the Haven. Four of them.”

“Should we care about mudbloods, princess?” Bartimus Crouch Jr. asked. “I do not mean this disrespectfully, just curiously.”

“It raises Dumbledore’s numbers,” Voldemort’s daughter hissed. “More of them means more that we will need to fight in the end.”

There was quiet for a moment before a slick voice said, “Is there anything to worry about with these mudbloods?”

“There are three boys and a girl,” she replied while glancing back at the man that was behind her, who nodded in confirmation. “The boys are rather average in what they do, but the girl is a possible threat.”

“Who is training her?” the soft voice of Lady Voldemort sounded out. She rarely ever spoke, but when she did it usually was for a good reason.

“Harry Potter milady,” the man standing behind her daughter replied.

“My former Head Boy,” Voldemort said slowly. “This does prove to be a problem. You say she is a threat, I assume it’s her magical prowess (the man nodded). That mixed with Potter’s rather unorthodox way of doing things could put a dent in my plans.”

“Or an advantage,” the Princess said quickly. “She is unbelievably powerful for a muggleborn, so it could be assumed that she’s not.”

Voldemort looked up at her before saying, “A decoy for our spy? Interesting thought my child.” She said nothing, but inside was proud of his reply. That was as close to a praise as she knew she would ever get from her father, so she reveled in the moment.

“Isn’t that risky?” someone else asked.

Voldemort’s eyes shone a crimson red as he snapped, “What’s risky is questioning me. Snape, Malfoy, Pettigrew, Black!”

The three men mentioned quickly stood to attention. Lucius Malfoy glanced around at Severus Snape, then at the rather pathetic looking Peter Pettigrew before his eyes rested on the youngest of those called, Regulus Black. Malfoy didn’t like the man much, but he wasn’t quite sure why. Maybe it was the way his eyes seemed to shift around almost nervously, or maybe it was because he was rumored to have a brother in the Haven, he didn’t know.

“I want you four,” Voldemort said slowly. “To each lead a raid on the muggle community each of the new little mudbloods are from. Show them why they should fear us. Prepare your men, my daughter will give you the details on the locations after I’m done speaking with her. Everyone except Bellatrix and Draco Malfoy are dismissed.”

Draco gulped nervously as almost everyone exited the room. His eyes shifted nervously from the door as it closed to his rather cold aunt. She motioned for him to follow her, and they walked towards Voldemort. His wife, daughter and the man that was with her were still there, but Draco knew better then to question it.

“Your aunt here tells me that you have been excelling over the basic training in the past couple weeks,” Voldemort said to Draco as he knelt in front of him along with Bellatrix. “Especially in the ways of a spy. Due to our lack of security recently I have decided I need someone to observe the new recruits, make sure we’re not bringing anyone into our army that we don’t want there. Due to your father’s long service, and your aunt’s ever loyalties, I have decided that this will be you. Do not fail me Draco, for if you do your mother’s life is easily extinguishable, understand?”

“Yes my king,” Draco said clearly.

“Excellent, get out of my sight. Bellatrix, I need you to stay a moment more.”

Draco left the room quickly and once he did Voldemort said, “Someone in our main circle is a spy. I want you to hunt him or her down Bellatrix.”

“Yes my lord,” she said slowly before exiting the room. Part of her had wished that he would ask her to stay, since there was more going on then any of the royals or that mysterious cloaked figure said.

“You know the families that work in this world and in the Haven think their safe,” the cloaked man said after a moment.

“I am aware of that,” Voldemort said. “How stupid of them. I know about the Potters, the Longbottoms and everyone else down there.”

“Why not do something about it then?” his daughter asked.

“Because it lures them into a sense of comfort, a false one at that,” the king replied. “For instance, the Longbottoms believe that their brat is safe just because they appear to be loyal to me in this world. The prophecy dictates that this Neville Longbottom will destroy me, but my plans have eliminated that threat.”

“Father?”

Aurora jumped to her feet quickly, startling everyone in the room. She motioned to her daughter and the young man to leave the room, quick they did in a hurry. Her blue eyes snapped towards her husband and said, “You didn’t.”

“Oh, I assure you, I did,” Riddle replied, with a satisfied smirk on his face.

“Tom, he’s so young!” Aurora cried out. “You can’t kill him.”

“Do you wish to rethink that?”

She stared at the floor and said, “What are you going to do to him?”

“Dumbledore sent Longbottom out on yet another mission, where Bellatrix intercepted him. He’s in the dungeons where I will deal with him…personally…”

“He’s the same age as—“

“Enough Aurora!” he snapped at her. “Tonight Neville Longbottom will die publicly as an enemy to the throne.”

“Please Tom, I’m begging you! Please don’t do this, not now.”

He stared at her for a moment before saying, “You’re right, his death deserves a much more public ceremony. Purification Day it is then. Goodnight Aurora.”

As Riddle left the room Aurora slumped to the floor and put her head in her hands, silver wisps of hair falling in front of her, hiding the tears that streaked down her cheeks.

It didn’t take long for news of the death sentence of Neville Longbottom to read the knowledge of Albus Dumbledore. His ever-loyal spy, Severus Snape, told him many things, including the fact that he was in charge of a brigade to destroy a small town in Ireland where one Seamus Finnigan was from.

Dumbledore didn’t care about the muggles, he just told Snape to go what he had to do to keep his position a secret. However, he was indeed fretting over Neville. He had only sent him out on a simple training errand and expected him to be back before the day was done.

His parents, of course, had not been informed yet. They were busy in the magic world, but Dumbledore knew he would have to pull them out of there, for if their son was already caught then they would most likely be tracked down as well.

This alone was enough to make fear creep into the old man’s veins. Snape had also mentioned that the spy, who never once removed his mask, had also mentioned another person by name, Harry Potter. This made chills go up Dumbledore’s spine. That meant that Voldemort had implications to yet another family in the city. As much as Dumbledore did not want to admit it, he knew that his once impenetrable city was in danger.

It made him wonder why Slytherin did not just make a move to destroy the city. It was nerve-wracking because he knew Voldemort was not one to sit still and not use such a huge advantage as he had. Due to this fact, Dumbledore knew there was something much larger in the works.

“I need someone from above to feed us any suspicious information, but who…”

Dumbledore stooped in the middle of his own sentence as the answer occurred to him. It would take a bit of work, but he knew he could probably get werewolf Remus Lupin to help them out. Remus lived in the world above with his son Joshua Lupin. It was a shame really that young Joshua had to leave his mother, Sarah Prewett, but he was inflicted with the same curse his father was. Sarah could have went with Remus, but instead chose to stay in the city with their younger, non-cursed son Aaron Prewett.

Dumbledore knew Remus would help; after all, he was sure the werewolf would take any amount of money to benefit his son.

Dumbledore nodded to himself then came to the realization that he would have to tell the Longbottoms that their son would be dead by dawn.

“Isn’t there something we can do?” Hermione asked Harry slowly. Her eyes had yet to leave the Longbottom’s faces, filled with fear and tears. “Anything?”

Harry shook his head, also watching sadly before saying, “If there was I’d do it in a heartbeat. I liked Neville, he was a nice guy.”

“Who are Dean and Seamus going to train with?” Ron Weasley asked from where he lay on a padded bench. “I don’t feel like dealing with them.”

The two boys in question glared at him as he talked about them as if they were items, not people.

“Does it matter?” Hermione snapped. “He’s going to die! He’s going to be killed publicly!”

Harry put his hand on her shoulder to calm her down; it was something that they had discovered worked very well over the weeks they had worked together.

“I can’t believe this is happening,” he muttered slowly. “I mean I’m used to being in Hogwarts with Neville at this point of time.” This much was true. The school season had begun again, causing a handful of the children in the City to leave including Alexa, Gemma and Mathias Potter.

Hermione nodded slightly before saying, “There has to be something we can do.”

“No honey, there’s not,” Lily Potter said as she appeared beside them. “If there was I’m sure Dumbledore wouldn’t still be sitting with the Longbottoms.”

“We’re screwed,” Ron muttered from behind them. “Completely and utterly screwed.”

“Why?” Hermione snapped. “It’s not like one person can stop this all from happening.”

“That’s right, you wouldn’t know, you’re only a muggleborn,” Ron said while rolling his blue eyes at her. “And Mr. Lets-Pretend-To-Be-A-Pureblood there is never around to have learned this. Well there was this nice thing called a prophecy. You know, it’s one of those things that pre—“

“We know what a prophecy is Ronald,” Harry snapped viciously.

Ron glared at him before continuing, “There was one about Neville. He was the only one that could defeat the high mighty ass above.”

Lily sighed at his choice of words and James grinned before nodding at Harry and Hermione’s curious stares in their direction, asking for confirmation of this new revelation to them.

“This is terrible,” Hermione said after a moment.

“It is,” Lily agreed. “But what’s worse is that this is just the beginning. Voldemort’s going to believe that he’s gotten rid of the main threat to him, and I’ll bet anything that he’ll try to attack here soon.”

“What can we do?” Harry asked his parents.

“Unfortunately nothing, but wait,” James replied with a sigh.

Krystal Lily Potter