Being yanked off the ground by a Portkey felt like someone had fastened an invisible hook to your navel, then violently flung your entire body into an unknown, dizzying vortex.
Douglas played the part of a panicking Harry Potter to perfection.
He stumbled and fell onto a patch of withered yellow grass, letting out a cry of pain befitting a boy, then quickly looked up, his face filled with just the right measure of bewilderment and wariness.
This was a ruined village halfway up a mountainside, surrounded by bare trees and stone walls more than half collapsed. The air was thick with the nauseating mingled smell of rotting leaves and damp earth.
Nearby, a huge black cauldron stood over a fire, eerie flames licking its bottom.
Beside the cauldron, a short figure huddled up, looking just like a bundle of rags that might be blown away at any moment.
It was Wormtail.
"He's here, Master! I caught him!"
At the sight of Harry, Wormtail shrieked like a rat whose tail had been stepped on, his voice mingling wild joy with bone-deep fear.
He scrambled over, his ratlike face filled with twisted excitement.
"Expelliarmus!"
A flash of red light streaked past, and the wand in Douglas's hand flew out of his grip. Wormtail caught it.
Douglas did not resist.
Right now, he was merely an unarmed "child," scared witless.
"Good... very good, Wormtail."
A hoarse, piercing voice rang out, like an icicle scraping over bone, making one's hair stand on end.
Wormtail trembled with excitement as though he had received the greatest of rewards.
He drew his own wand, and a rope appeared out of thin air, binding Douglas tightly to a rough wooden stake.
Only after doing all this did he dare carefully pick up the thing wrapped in black