Lucius Malfoy was sitting in his room at Malfoy Manor. He was clenching a newspaper in his hand. And he was lost in his own thoughts. It was a small report inside the newspaper that had made Lucius fall in contemplation.
His mind had been in a mess for the past few days. He was frustrated, irritated, confused, and unsure about the decisions he was making or the decisions he was not making in his life.
In the span of one month, since that fateful day at the Black family gathering when Bellatrix had suddenly brought Antonio Olario with her, things had spiraled out of control. That day, no one could have expected things to suddenly go wary.
It had been a few days since he had last seen the Dark Lord, at the gathering held at Lestrange Manor. Rodolphus Lestrange had pulled off something that had made him a hero within their organisation. He had planned, executed, and brought everyone back alive from a successful attack on Hogsmeade.
And because of that single attack, his status had risen dramatically in a matter of moments.
Lucius vividly remembered the meeting that followed. Rodolphus had been the centre of attention, and as sand shifted with the wind, many who had distanced themselves from the Lestrange family after the death of Reinhart Lestrange had begun to gravitate back toward him. To Lucius, this was hardly surprising. This was the nature of humans.
Then the Dark Lord had made his spectacular and grand entrance. He heaped lavish praise upon Rodolphus. The Dark Lord extolled the bravery, courage, wit, and cunning Rodolphus had displayed during the attack. He lauded him for delivering such a powerful slap across the face of someone like Albus Dumbledore. He mocked Dumbledore's declaration that he would begin killing Death Eaters.
After that, he launched into his usual propaganda of pure blood superiority, calling for half-bloods to be given a lower status, and muggle borns to be kept as servants or slaves to the superior pure bloods. That was how they were taking control over the Wizarding Britain and how the power of pure bloods was being crippled in a systematic manner.
He concluded his monologue by repeating that very soon he would exact revenge upon Edmund Bones, urging the Death Eaters to have a little patience in this matter.
And finally, he called upon the Death Eaters once more to remain unbridled and attack whatever and whoever they wished. Even so, this time he added a word of caution, they were to refrain from attacking their own allies.
But like the previous few times, Lucius had not been focused on the words coming out of the Dark Lord's mouth. Instead, he had been focused on demeanour, mannerism and subtle gestures from the Dark Lord. And Lucius was certain that he had been able to read many things about him.
The Dark Lord had seemed low on confidence, a bit nervous and anxious while delivering his speech. Although Lucius was not entirely certain of the reason, he suspected that the Dark Lord was not very comfortable with the idea of starting a war against Albus Dumbledore. Ever since the beginning of their campaign, Lucius had noticed a pattern. The Dark Lord had been purposefully avoiding Albus Dumbledore.
It might have been far fetched, but Lucius could not shake the feeling that the Dark Lord was afraid of facing Dumbledore.
And then something else happened.
Two Death Eaters were killed, nailed to a wall, and displayed for the entire world to see. Like the majority of people in Wizarding Britain, Lucius' suspicions fell upon Albus Dumbledore. Perhaps because of this, the Death Eaters were reluctant to discuss the deaths of their comrades. They wanted to brush the incident aside, to bury it and pretend it had not happened. Maybe they were afraid of drawing Dumbledore's attention and becoming his next target. There was little talk of the killings in his organisation. Even the Dark Lord remained silent.
There had been no contact from him since that gathering, and Lucius did not know about the other Death Eaters but that silence was haunting him. The nervousness and anxiety Lucius had sensed that night in the Dark Lord now seemed to be manifesting into reality.
But things took an even bigger turn during the Wizengamot session. And once again, at the center of it all was Antonio Olario.
For the first time, someone had gathered enough courage to publicly call out the Dark Lord. He openly branded their organisation as nothing more than a bunch of cowards. The so-called glorious attack on Hogsmeade was reduced to an act of cowardice and shamelessness.
And no matter how begrudging Lucius felt, he had to admit that Lord Olario had made some very valid points. How could they claim to be powerful when they only attacked the weak? And most of the time, it was not even a frontal assault, but an ambush. How could they claim superiority when they targeted children?
Yet Lucius also knew that he was likely one of the very few thinking this way. Most of his colleagues would be seething and raging over Antonio's remarks. They would not spare even a moment to consider the points he had raised.
But even this had not been enough. Antonio, instead, marched several steps further. He had openly challenged the Dark Lord to attack Albus Dumbledore, and there had been no reaction from Dumbledore at all. It was nothing short of a silent endorsement of Antonio's challenge.
And just as Lucius had expected that day, there was no response from the Dark Lord, only silence. Silence, as usual.
This time, however, many within the organisation of the Death Eaters were waiting for a response from the Dark Lord. Yet Lucius doubted that he would react at all. He was merely waiting for the next gathering and was deeply intrigued to see what the Dark Lord would say then. How would he motivate his followers? How would he address what had happened?
And then there was the news that had pulled Lucius into this spiral of thought.
It was printed in a small corner of the newspaper, something most people would easily overlook. It was a missing persons report, three individuals. In the past few weeks, such reports had become quite common, and they rarely drew any attention unless the missing person was someone prominent. But this particular report had Lucius's full attention.
Because all three missing individuals were Death Eaters. He recognised them all.
Kidnappings were usually carried out by the Death Eaters themselves, often to extract ransom and fund their war. But then who would dare kidnap Death Eaters?
The same person who had killed the two Death Eaters earlier?
Lucius did not know. But he had a very strong inkling that this small piece of news, buried in the corner of a newspaper, was going to grow into something far bigger.
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