Wormtail knelt on the floor, not daring to move. All he could see were those small, withered hands, like chicken claws, unfolding the Daily Prophet with its fresh scent of printing ink.
Voldemort's gaze fell on the moving photograph.
It showed a typical, foolish wizarding family.
The firelight shone on their happy, smiling faces, its warmth sickening.
But in Voldemort's scarlet eyes, the scene underwent a complete, horrifying distortion.
That was not a home. It was a corner of his future domain.
That was not a fireplace. It was a throne symbolizing absolute power.
The faces of those happy fools stretched and twisted in his eyes, finally merging into the faces he loathed most-
Dumbledore's hypocritical smile, Holmes's infuriating composure, and Black's damned handsome face, the face of a pure-blood traitor.
They were mocking him.
His gaze moved down.
Several hooded shadows appeared outside the courtyard wall.
These were not actors in an advertisement. They were his future army, extensions of his will.
One shadow flicked a wand contemptuously, and the seemingly solid gate melted silently like butter.
This was what power should look like.
Doing as one pleased, destroying anything in one's path.
This privilege should have belonged to him alone.
But then the scene shifted. Those shadows struck an invisible golden barrier and were instantly hurled back in a sorry state.
The wizarding family in the photograph still laughed before the fireplace, seemingly unaware of anything that had just happened.
Voldemort's breath caught slightly.
His eyes finally left the moving photograph and settled on the lower half of the newspaper-the conceptual diagram of a defensive network covering the entire Britain Islands.
At that instant, within his deeply suspicious inner world, made infinitely sensitive by weakness.
This unremarkable marketing diagram became an awakening beast, ready to devour its prey.