(Antonio Pov)
After realizing that it was Lord Edmund Bones who was going to speak, most probably to ask Rodolphus Lestrange for an apology from the Lestrange family for the act of the previous Lestrange Lord, I held myself back.
I would speak after Lord Bones had his say. Because, after I would speak, the Wizengamot would most probably be not in the condition to hear anything more. I was planning to make them more uncomfortable than I had made them at my formal induction.
Lord Bones was about to open his mouth, to ask for permission from the minister to speak, when I spotted the expression of horror appearing on the Minister's face.
The next moment, he screamed, screeched at the top of his lungs. He had lost control of the Ministry wards. The rest of the Wizengamot hall did not understand immediately what Harold Minchum was trying to say. But I understood his words in an instant, and in the same moment, I also understood the implications. And those implications were grave.
The Ministry of Magic was a public place and was accessible to everyone. The wards did not prevent anyone from entering the Ministry building, but they did other very important things.
They did not allow anyone to Apparate inside or from the Ministry building, nor were Portkeys allowed. The only form of magical transportation allowed inside the Ministry was the Ministry approved and regulated network of Floo. Anyone trying to trespass it was eliminated by the powerful ministry wards. And elimination, meant death.
Also, the Minister and a few other heads of important departments had the power to evict anyone from inside the Ministry building. And since the wards were so powerful, there was no one capable or powerful enough to resist a forceful eviction. Neither Dumbledore, nor Voldemort nor I.
I understood what the Minister would have been feeling at this exact moment. The wards were like a body part to whoever controlled them. You did not feel them consciously, but the moment something happened to them, you would register that feeling in your mind. The Minister and the other officials would have been feeling as if their very body parts had been severed.
As my mind registered all these feelings, I instinctively brought my wands into my hands. I could sense danger approaching. My grip hardened on my wand as I prepared for something bad or even worse.
And true to my tingling instincts, the danger was actually here. The old man had just started to descend the steps towards the exit when it happened. The ice cold and horrifying voice resonated through the hall.
"What is the hurry?" the voice screeched with a snake like hiss. "We can chat for a little bit. Where would the wards go?"
The moment I heard the voice, I recognized it. I had not heard it even once in my life, but I knew in an instant whom the voice belonged to.
And I was certain that there were a few others who, like me, recognized it. The few Death Eaters. After all, it was the voice of their liege, their lord, the man who they worshipped, the Dark Lord, Voldemort.
To the Wizengamot, the voice was echoing from nowhere. It was not possible to identify the source. It resonated from all around the hall.
And with the voice, the atmosphere inside the hall changed. A feeling of dread took over the entire Wizengamot. The air turned heavy and suffocating. It was as if an ethereal and divine presence had descended upon the hall.
The temperature plummeted, and the air turned chilly. The magical lanterns illuminating the hall had dimmed and they were flickering. Lords and spectators alike could feel the chill crawling down their spines and their blood turning cold.
I could see it on their faces. The fear, the dread, the horror and the overwhelming fright. I could see the beads of sweat that had formed on their foreheads. I could see them clenching their fists out of fright and their legs shivering.
There were a few like me who had actually gathered enough courage to draw their wands. Though their hands were trembling and knees buckling, they were using their Occlumency to maintain their composure and prevent an expression of fright from appearing on their faces.
But I wondered if they would have that same courage when they learned the identity of the person who had just spoken. That it was none other than the Dark Lord himself.
The moment I had learned that Albus Dumbledore would not be participating in the Wizengamot meeting, I had felt my senses tingle. My instincts had flared warnings at me. I had felt the danger coming.
But when Lord Bones explained that it was not actually a very rare event for Albus Dumbledore to miss the Winzengamot session for the International Wizards Conference and that it had happened a few times in the past, I had suppressed that feeling of approaching danger. But now it seemed my instincts had been correct. I really should trust them more.
After all, Dumbledore suddenly disappearing from Hogwarts when danger struck the school children had been a very popular canon trope. It was the same troupe repeating itself.
It did not mean that I was getting nervous, anxious, or fearful. In fact, my blood was pumping like crazy, and a sudden rush of adrenaline had broken through my body. I was going to face the Dark Lord.
This was a feeling I had not felt in a long time, in fact, I had not felt it since I had transmigrated into this world. It was the same feeling I used to get when I jumped from a helicopter or dived in the deep ocean.
Voldemort was finally making his move, and at what place? In the Wizengamot hall. At the very power centre of Wizarding Britain. And I did not need to be a genius to figure out that I was going to be his most probable target.
I did not know what the scale of Voldemort's attack was going to be. Was he going to kill the Lords of the Houses? I doubted that. If he attacked all the Lords indiscriminately, he was going to lose all his support among the pure blood families.
But now that he had made all the effort of breaching the Ministry wards and attacking the Wizengamot, he would surely be looking for something big. And probably, I was going to be that prize. And I did not think this out of narcissism. And he was going to make a statement. I had questioned his capabilities, his courage in the same hall.
And now he was here to grant me answers in this very same hall. Poetic justice.
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