Starry skies and Gardenias

Chapter 154

The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, neatly manicured hedge. 

Turning right would lead into a wide driveway that led off the lane. The high hedge curved with them, running off into the distance beyond the pair of impressive wrought-iron gates barring the way.  

A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive, lights glinting in the diamond-paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden beyond the hedge, a fountain was playing. 

Inside the manor, the hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the walls would follow as one strode past. 

There was a heavy wooden door leading into the next room with a bronze handle.

The room's usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded mirror. 

The drawing-room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table.

After all, no one spoke until Lord Voldemort asked them to. 

But it did not mean that silence was all that reigned. 

A man's screams were echoing through the walls, and not one person bat an eyelash. 

"Enough," said a high, clear voice from the head of the table.

The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at first to make out more than his silhouette. 

Drawing nearer, however, his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a pearly glow.

Bellatrix Lestrange lifted her curse and the man's screams subsided. 

"Tell me," Voldemort said in his voice that rooted everyone to their seats. "About the Elder Wand, Ollivander. Where is it?"

"I do not know," Ollivander said in a whisper. 

"Crucio," Bellatrix said blithely, as though she found the entire situation nothing but amusing.

The man screamed and writhed on the floor, tears of pain falling onto the floor. 

Voldemort raised his hand, and Bellatrix lifted her curse.

"I heard rumours," Ollivander gasped. "Rumours—Gregorovitch said he possessed the wand,"

"Gregorovitch," Lord Voldemort repeated. "Is another wandmaker?"

"Yes," Ollivander wheezed through the pain. "Yes, yes,"

"My Lord," Severus Snape's quiet voice spoke, breaking the silence that had before only been broken by Ollivander's laboured breathing. 

Lord Voldemort's gleaming red eyes snapped to give a deathly glare at his follower.

Severus felt a shiver run up his spine but did not act on it. 

He was the newest in their group, and he had to do something to prove his worth and get the recognition of his master. 

"My Lord," he said, ardent respect in his voice. "An Unbeatable wand seems far fetched. Would it not be more prudent to look for a wand made of elder?"

"Is that so? Let us see what our wandmakers opinion on that subject is, shall we, Severus?" Voldemort said turning to the old wandmaker.

"He is right," Ollivander wheezed.