Watching the Match

Level Nine Underground, Department of Mysteries.

The chandelier swayed slowly, its dim candlelight barely illuminating the spacious room. Glass tanks filled with an unknown dark green liquid stood in the center, brains floating lightly within like fish. Whenever they drifted near the glass, their gray-white, furrowed cortexes flickered into view.

Voldemort stared straight at the brains floating in the tanks. His bloodless face was reflected in the liquid, a pale blur undulating with the ripples. It was impossible to tell whether it was a reflection or one of the brains in the tank. The sight was indescribably eerie.

Gradually, he became absorbed in watching them. His pupils relaxed naturally, his gaze turning slightly unfocused, as though he had entered the world inside the glass tank, swimming, thinking, and communicating alongside those brains. Their thoughts melded together until they seemed like one.

Someone entered. Almost the instant the footsteps sounded, Voldemort's slit pupils contracted sharply, and a scarlet gleam bloomed in his eyes.

"Bellatrix..."

"My Lord."

"Lestrange came to see me not long ago. He said the Aurors from the Ministry of Magic had tortured you into madness. Is that true?"

"I went mad? Because of those idiots at the Ministry of Magic?" Bellatrix burst out laughing, her shrill, piercing voice echoing throughout the room. She laughed so hard that she bent forward and back, tears streaming down her face.

Once she had laughed enough, she wiped at the corner of her eye and said sinisterly, "What do those young Aurors know about torture? Their Cruciatus Curse is nothing more than a useless red light. Lestrange should understand that only genuine malice can make pathetic creatures howl beneath a wand!"

Voldemort narrowed his eyes slightly, a trace of pleasure appearing on his face. "Yes. If it had been the Aurors led