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As soon as I revealed the identity of the dead man, a wave of surprised and disbelieving exclamations echoed all around.
From the moment they noticed the corpse Harry and I had brought with us, everyone had been curious and eager to discover his identity.
Now, upon learning that he was a Death Eater, their astonishment was inevitable. They finally understood that the situation was much darker than they had imagined.
And, as expected, curiosity — and even the craving for a juicy new piece of gossip — only intensified among them.
They had already realized that if the body I had brought belonged to a Death Eater, then the severed head and hand certainly belonged to men of equally sinister reputation.
And thanks to Fudge's imprudence and foolishness in not lowering his voice, everyone also knew that the head belonged to a Ministry official, someone the Minister apparently held in high regard.
Seeing that Fudge was starting to grow anxious as he heard the increasingly critical whispers around him, I smiled discreetly.
'Heh... Let's see how you handle this, Minister,' I thought, a little resentfully.
While I enjoyed Fudge's discomfort and growing worry, those in my group looked at me strangely.
"What is he doing?" Dora whispered to her cousin.
And Sirius, just like the others who heard her question, didn't know how to answer. They only managed to look at one another, confused about what I was doing.
My family and the others with me were completely puzzled when they saw I had begun speaking about what had happened in the graveyard.
They didn't understand why I was bringing it up now, when only a short while ago I had refused to mention it.
They knew I hadn't been intimidated by Fudge's words or presence. In fact, I was the one who intimidated others, not the other way around.
And they also knew me well enough to understand that I wouldn't do something so contradictory and sudden without a reason.
Precisely because of this, they found my actions so strange — even incomprehensible.
'Could what happened in the graveyard have been so dangerous and disturbing that it ended up shaking Ethan's mind?' my mom wondered, worried about my state.
But then, she — and everyone else in the group — noticed the gleam in my eyes and the faint malicious smile on my lips. At that moment, they understood: I was plotting something.
They were intelligent people, and so they realized that my earlier silence had not been by chance, but because I was waiting for exactly this moment.
So, as they listened to me recount the events in the graveyard in such a dramatic — almost theatrical — way, like a storyteller narrating an exciting tale, they chose to remain silent.
They chose to trust me and allow me to continue with whatever I was planning.
They would only watch my performance with interest — and with intense anticipation.
After all, they knew that my look didn't just mean I had a plan... it also meant that someone was going to get the worst of it.
And they knew exactly who that unlucky victim would be.
I didn't know the thoughts or the decision made by my family and Harry's family, I just felt their support and trust in me.
But at that moment, I wasn't paying much attention to it. Now I only had one mission, which was to finish talking about my macabre adventure.
"After Pettigrew attacked and incapacitated us, instead of killing or torturing us, he bound us to gravestones. And right after that, we saw him approach a large cauldron, filled with a strange liquid."
"He then began throwing various ingredients inside. Bones, pieces of flesh, and blood... all from humans." I paused, letting this horrid detail sink into everyone's minds.
"At that moment, watching his actions, I finally understood... He was preparing some kind of dark ritual — something very dangerous and vile."
As soon as they heard the words 'ritual' and 'dark', the whispers and scratching of quills stopped for a brief moment, giving way to a heavy silence.
"I don't know exactly what the ritual was for, but as soon as Pettigrew finished it, the cauldron exploded... and from it emerged a pale man with red eyes, with a strange appearance... almost like a snake."
Saying this, I looked at the faces around me, noticing how some people paled or recoiled in fear.
The feelings of fear, panic, anguish, worry, and denial pressed heavily against my senses.
My empathy could capture every wave of negative emotion from those who had faced the horrors of the First Wizarding Blood War.
"Pettigrew then knelt and extended his arm, the one with the Dark Mark, to that man, before calling him master—"
"Impossible!" Fudge interrupted me furiously. "You must be delirious! There's no way that man is him! You-Know-Who is dead!" he shouted, his eyes both fearful and angry.
"Minister, I am merely recounting what I witnessed in that graveyard, just as you asked," I said to him calmly. "And besides, I never said this man was You-Know-Who. After all, I don't even know what he looks like."
"When he was defeated by Harry, I was only a baby who didn't even know magic existed. So how could I affirm or deny that the dark wizard I saw was him?" I asked, wearing a 'genuine' expression of doubt.
"That..." Fudge hesitated, without a good answer. His face was twisted, both with anger and confusion.
And it wasn't just him who was facing so many emotions. Those around us were also afflicted, showing expressions of doubt and caution on their faces.
A small portion of the people were fully attentive to my words, believing in my story and realizing the importance of what I was saying.
As for the rest, they were somewhat suspicious of what I said, but they could not deny that I had no reason to lie about something like this.
And that was what made everything worse for them, because they knew that there was only one person a Death Eater like Pettigrew would call master.
The Dark Lord Voldemort... the great evil of the British wizarding community.
Realizing that public opinion was starting to shift from disbelief and doubt to worry and fear, Fudge furrowed his brow.
'No. I can't let people believe the Dark Lord has returned.'
'If this spreads, the people will panic. They'll start questioning the Ministry, and I cannot let that happen... at least not while I am Minister.' he thought, clenching his fists.
Then, suppressing his own doubts and fear, he cast a sharp glance at me.
"Well, it makes no difference whether you know who that man is or not. What matters now is that everyone here needs to know that there is no Dark Lord in Britain."
"Are you sure about that?" I raised an eyebrow at him. "Because I seriously doubt a Death Eater would swear loyalty to just any dark wizard."
"Hmph! Pettigrew calling that man master means nothing," Fudge scoffed. "And besides, a single Death Eater kneeling to another dark wizard doesn't make him a Dark Lord."
"Oh really? Then what do you say about them?" I retorted, gesturing to the severed head and arm on the ground.
Looking at the bloody remains, Fudge's face immediately went pale before he quickly looked away.
Resisting the urge to vomit, he looked back at me with a rigid face.
"A-and what about them?"
"Well, the thing is, that arm and that head belonged to two other Death Eaters. And they're just a few of the Death Eaters who appeared in the graveyard after being summoned by the red-eyed wizard," I replied.
Then, crossing my arms, I stared at the Minister challengingly.
"So what now, Minister? Are you going to tell me it was just a coincidence that those Death Eaters gathered there?"
End.
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