Nagini’s coils made a sound like wet rope dragging over polished wood, her immense body slithering across the length of the Malfoy dining table. The candlelight bent and quivered with each shift of her weight, casting warped shadows across the tense faces of the Death Eaters seated rigidly along the sides. None dared move. None dared breathe too loudly. Every flick of the serpent’s tongue, every ripple of her scales, was a reminder of their master’s cruelty, as constant and suffocating as the stale air of the room.

At the head of the table sat Voldemort. The sight of him commanded revulsion and awe in equal measure. His skin was a pale, corpse-like white that caught the light in unnatural ways, gleaming faintly as though stretched too thin over bone. His nose was reduced to nothing but narrow slits, and his eyes—those terrible eyes—glowed a deep, blooded red, pupils thin and merciless as a serpent’s. Yet there was no clumsiness in his monstrosity. He carried it with an elegance that made him all the more horrifying, a grotesque beauty wrought of power rather than flesh.

His long fingers rested lightly upon the carved arm of his chair, grotesquely elongated, the grey of them like marble left too long in a graveyard. They twitched occasionally, the movement delicate, almost idle, like the stirring of a spider’s legs before it strikes. When they brushed the polished surface of the table, they moved as though tasting the wood, slow and deliberate, each tap a soft mockery of heartbeat. His lips—thin, colorless, and always faintly curved—seemed incapable of forming expressions that were not sneers or cruel amusement.

To his right sat Lucius Malfoy, hair pale and face hollow, the shell of a man who once strutted with aristocratic pride. Beside him, Draco sat stiff and pale, the boy’s youthful beauty frozen into an expression of glassy dread. To Voldemort’s left was Severus Snape, his profile sharp as a blade, expression perfectly unreadable. He alone gave nothing away. Neither defiance nor fear showed in his dark eyes; he remained a shadow within shadows, an extension of stillness that Voldemort tolerated at his side.

The Death Eaters filled the long table like statues draped in black, hands folded, backs stiff. No one spoke without permission. The scrape of Nagini’s belly against the wood, the faint hiss as she lifted her head to watch them with golden eyes, was the only sound—until Crabbe’s heavy, uneven voice broke it.

“My Lord,” Crabbe began, his voice thick and stumbling, “the village of Little Stretton has been fully subdued. We burned the houses nearest the square to drive them out—many fled into the woods, but were hunted down. Twenty-three were killed outright, and the remainder were taken for questioning. The Muggle authorities suspect nothing; we silenced the local officials.”

The words hung in the air like smoke, swallowed at once by the silence that followed. Voldemort did not answer. He did not need to. The stillness of his body, the cold curve of his mouth, the way his fingers began to trace idle patterns against the wood—these were answer enough. The room bowed under his presence, every man and woman around the table reduced to nothing more than shadows trembling beneath the grotesque and terrible beauty of the Dark Lord.