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face flooded with colour; her eyes welled with tears of delight.

      ‘My Lord knows I speak nothing but the truth!’

      ‘No higher pleasure … even compared with the happy event that, I hear, has taken place in your family this week?’

      She stared at him, her lips parted, evidently confused.

      ‘I don’t know what you mean, my Lord.’

      ‘I’m talking about your niece, Bellatrix. And yours, Lucius and Narcissa. She has just married the werewolf, Remus Lupin. You must be so proud.’

      There was an eruption of jeering laughter from around the table. Many leaned forward to exchange gleeful looks; a few thumped the table with their fists. The great snake, disliking the disturbance, opened its mouth wide and hissed angrily, but the Death Eaters did not hear it, so jubilant were they at Bellatrix and the Malfoys’ humiliation. Bellatrix’s face, so recently flushed with happiness, had turned an ugly, blotchy red.

      ‘She is no niece of ours, my Lord,’ she cried over the outpouring of mirth. ‘We – Narcissa and I – have never set eyes on our sister since she married the Mudblood. This brat has nothing to do with either of us, nor any beast she marries.’

      ‘What say you, Draco?’ asked Voldemort, and though his voice was quiet, it carried clearly through the catcalls and jeers. ‘Will you babysit the cubs?’

      The hilarity mounted; Draco Malfoy looked in terror at his father, who was staring down into his own lap, then caught his mother’s eye. She shook her head almost imperceptibly, then resumed her own deadpan stare at the opposite wall.

      ‘Enough,’ said Voldemort, stroking the angry snake. ‘Enough.’

      And the laughter died at once.

      ‘Many of our oldest family trees become a little diseased over time,’ he said, as Bellatrix gazed at him, breathless and imploring. ‘You must prune yours, must you not, to keep it healthy? Cut away those parts that threaten the health of the rest.’

      ‘Yes, my Lord,’ whispered Bellatrix, and her eyes swam with tears of gratitude again. ‘At the first chance!’

      ‘You shall have it,’ said Voldemort. ‘And in your family, so in the world … we shall cut away the canker that infects us until only those of the true blood remain …’

      Voldemort raised Lucius Malfoy’s wand, pointed it directly at the slowly revolving figure suspended over the table and gave it a tiny flick. The figure came to life with a groan and began to struggle against invisible bonds.

      ‘Do you recognise our guest, Severus?’ asked Voldemort.

      Snape raised his eyes to the upside-down face. All of the Death Eaters were looking up at the captive now, as though they had been given permission to show curiosity. As she revolved to face the firelight, the woman said, in a cracked and terrified voice, ‘Severus! Help me!’

      ‘Ah, yes,’ said Snape, as the prisoner turned slowly away again.

      ‘And you, Draco?’ asked Voldemort, stroking the snake’s snout with his wand-free hand. Draco shook his head jerkily. Now that the woman had woken, he seemed unable to look at her any more.

      ‘But you would not have taken her classes,’ said Voldemort. ‘For those of you who do not know, we are joined here tonight by Charity Burbage who, until recently, taught at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.’

      There were small noises of comprehension around the table. A broad, hunched woman with pointed teeth cackled.

      ‘Yes … Professor Burbage taught the children of witches and wizards all about Muggles … how they are not so different from us …’

      One of the Death Eaters spat on the floor. Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape again.

      ‘Severus … please … please …’

      ‘Silence,’ said Voldemort, with another twitch of Malfoy’s wand, and Charity fell silent as if gagged. ‘Not content with corrupting and polluting the minds of wizarding children, last week Professor Burbage wrote an impassioned defence of Mudbloods in the Daily Prophet. Wizards, she says, must accept these thieves of their knowledge and magic. The dwindling of the pure-bloods is, says Professor Burbage, a most desirable circumstance … she would have us all mate with Muggles … or, no doubt, werewolves …’

      Nobody laughed this time: there was no mistaking the anger and contempt in Voldemort’s voice. For the third time, Charity Burbage revolved to face Snape. Tears were pouring from her eyes into her hair. Snape looked back at her, quite impassive, as she turned slowly away from him again.

      ‘Avada Kedavra.’

      The flash of green light illuminated every corner of the room. Charity fell, with a resounding crash, on to the table below, which trembled and creaked. Several of the Death Eaters leapt back in their chairs. Draco fell out of his on to the floor.

      ‘Dinner, Nagini,’ said Voldemort softly, and the great snake swayed and slithered from his shoulders on to the polished wood.

      – CHAPTER TWO —

      In Memoriam

      Harry was bleeding. Clutching his right hand in his left and swearing under his breath, he shouldered open his bedroom door. There was a crunch of breaking china: he had trodden on a cup of cold tea that had been sitting on the floor outside his bedroom door.

      ‘What the –?’

      He looked around; the landing of number four, Privet Drive, was deserted. Possibly the cup of tea was Dudley’s idea of a clever booby trap. Keeping his bleeding hand elevated, Harry scraped the fragments of cup together with the other hand and threw them into the already crammed bin just visible inside his bedroom door. Then he tramped across to the bathroom to run his finger under the tap.

      It was stupid, pointless, irritating beyond belief, that he still had four days left of being unable to perform magic … but he had to admit to himself that this jagged cut in his finger would have defeated him. He had never learned how to repair wounds and now he came to think of it – particularly in light of his immediate plans – this seemed a serious flaw in his magical education. Making a mental note to ask Hermione how it was done, he used a large wad of toilet paper to mop up as much of the tea as he could, before returning to his bedroom and slamming the door behind him.

      Harry had spent the morning completely emptying his school trunk for the first time since he had packed it six years ago. At the start of the intervening school years, he had merely skimmed off the topmost three quarters of the contents and replaced or updated them, leaving a layer of general debris at the bottom – old quills, desiccated beetle eyes, single socks that no longer fitted. Minutes previously Harry had plunged his hand into this mulch, experienced a stabbing pain in the fourth finger of his right hand and withdrawn it to see a lot of blood.

      He now proceeded a little more cautiously. Kneeling down beside the trunk again, he groped around in the bottom and, after retrieving an old badge that flickered feebly between Support CEDRIC DIGGORY and POTTER STINKS, a cracked and worn-out Sneakoscope and a gold locket inside which a note signed ‘R.A.B.’ had been hidden, he finally discovered the sharp edge that had done the damage. He recognised it at once. It was a two-inch-long fragment of the enchanted mirror that his dead godfather, Sirius, had given him. Harry laid it aside and felt cautiously around the trunk for the rest, but nothing more remained of his godfather’s last gift except powdered glass, which clung to the deepest layer of debris like glittering grit.

      Harry sat up and examined the jagged piece on which he had cut himself, seeing nothing but his own bright green eye reflected back at him. Then he placed the fragment on top of that morning’s Daily Prophet, which lay unread on the bed, and attempted to stem the sudden upsurge of bitter memories, the stabs of regret and of longing the discovery of the broken mirror had occasioned, by attacking the rest of the rubbish in the trunk.

      It took another hour to empty it completely, throw away the useless items and sort the remainder in piles according to whether

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