Bellatrix Lestrange hurried to Malfoy Manor.
A trace of anxiety showed on her young, delicate face. As she stepped out of the fireplace, she shouted, "Cissy! Cissy! Where's Lucius?"
Narcissa sat upright in an armchair.
She held a tiny, platinum-haired bundle in her arms, gently patting him. At the sound of Bellatrix's voice, she looked up in surprise. "Bella?"
Across from her, Lucius looked displeased.
Of this generation of the Black family, only Regulus and Narcissa were tolerable.
The rest were either rebellious, like Sirius, or deranged, like Bellatrix.
Having finished his inward grumbling, Lucius elegantly set down his teacup and curved his lips into a fifteen-degree fake smile that did not reach his eyes. "Can I help you?"
Bellatrix had never liked Malfoy, not only because he was a hypocrite, but because someone so hypocritical still managed to win such favor with the Dark Lord!
But she had no time to argue with Malfoy now. She hastily pulled up her left sleeve and stared at Lucius in alarm. "The Dark Mark has faded!"
Lucius's expression changed. Abandoning his aristocratic composure, he pulled up his own sleeve.
Sure enough, it really had faded.
The once-active, deep-black mark had become a faint outline, as though it had been drawn in pencil.
Narcissa saw it too. Her expression changed, and she looked at her husband in concern.
Lucius lowered his sleeve and stood, taking up the cane beside him, which concealed his wand. "We're going to see Severus," he told Bella.
Then he turned and kissed Narcissa lightly on the cheek. "Cissy, don't worry. I'll handle this."
Bella hurried toward the fireplace, stumbling along the way.
Lucius, at least, kept his steps reasonably steady.
The two stepped out of the fireplace at Spinner's End and coughed several times as dust filled the air around them.
Lucius waved his wand. "Scourgify!"
The two pure-bloods cleared away the damned dust, but the air still irritated their noses. A step sent a bottle rolling, and glass clinked sharply against glass.
Lucius looked down at the empty bottles scattered across the floor and frowned.
He surveyed the cramped, gloomy room and found Snape slumped in an armchair, utterly drunk.
The man's brow was tightly furrowed, his wand carelessly tossed aside. He still clutched a nearly empty bottle in his arms. His eyes were red, he reeked of alcohol, and he looked utterly broken.
Lucius's brow creased almost imperceptibly.
Snape had always been restrained and acerbic. He had never seen his friend like this. Had something really happened to the Dark Lord?
He intended to wake his friend gently, but Bella had already stormed across the bottle-strewn floor and used Aguamenti to splash water all over Snape's face.
Bella seized Snape by the shoulders and shook him violently. Startled, Lucius hurried over and pulled her hands off Snape's clothes.
Still, she had achieved her aim-Snape was awake.
Lucius had just begun to form his fifteen-degree smile, ready to ask a question.
But Bella had already yanked up her sleeve and thrust her arm toward Snape's face, nearly hitting his nose as she demanded anxiously,
"The skull mark has faded! Do you know why? What's happened to the master? Has something happened to him? He hasn't summoned even a single Death Eater in days!"
Snape had been forcibly shaken awake, still overwhelmed by grief and suffering from a hangover, only to have a barrage of questions hurled at him-questions about the very man responsible for Lily's death.
Grief filled his heart, and anger burned within him.
With the lingering alcohol still clouding his judgment, he let out an involuntary snort and sneered in his low, rich, slightly hoarse voice,
"The Dark Lord is gone! He was defeated by the boy in the prophecy."
Bella froze, then dropped to the floor with a thud.
Lucius froze too.
His mind went blank for a moment. Then his gray-blue eyes sharpened, and he immediately began calculating how much money he would need and what excuse would allow the Malfoy family to stay out of this and sever its ties to the Dark Lord.
Snape was in no mood to entertain either of them.
He snorted. "I assume that two noble pure-bloods, the Dark Lord's trusted servants, still possess legs and do not require a pitiful, drunken half-blood who has lost the woman he loves to exert himself by standing up to see them out!"
Lucius recovered, caught hold of Bella with one hand, and took his leave.
"The Boy Who Lived has defeated the Dark Lord!"
The next day, the news appeared in the Daily Prophet's headline, and the wizarding world began to stir.
Innocent people watched and waited, their hearts full of eagerness and hope.
Had the cruelest Dark wizard in history, the Dark Lord who treated human lives as worthless, the man whose name could not be spoken, truly been defeated?
Was he really dead?
The Death Eaters grew restless.
The Ministry of Magic, which they had long suppressed and left powerless to fight back, began working with the Order of the Phoenix to arrest Death Eaters on a massive scale.
Still, there was no word from the Dark Lord.
The Death Eater marks on their arms never stirred again.
...as though the symbol that had struck terror into countless hearts were nothing more than a child's prank.
The Death Eaters soon split into two factions.
One consisted of Voldemort's staunch supporters, led by Bellatrix.
They firmly believed that the Dark Lord had only left temporarily and would return one day;
The other was exemplified by Lucius Malfoy.
They claimed that the Dark Lord had placed them under the Imperius Curse, leaving them unable to control their actions, and did everything they could to distance themselves from Voldemort.
Eventually, with no sign of Voldemort, people began to believe that the monster was dead.
The Death Eaters who remained loyal to Voldemort were all thrown into Azkaban, where their guards were, ironically, the very Dementors that had wreaked havoc at the height of Voldemort's power.
Some aristocrats, however, worked hard to distance themselves from Voldemort and donated enormous sums of money. In the end, they emerged unscathed and retained their lofty positions.
Meanwhile, in the Muggle world, an old man, a woman, and a half-giant left a small baby on a family's doorstep.
They said softly, "Good luck, Harry Potter!"
(Good luck, Harry Potter!)
This baby had already earned his place in history.