The Preparations begin

Chapter 2: The Preparations Begin

Disclaimer: The story's mine. Except for a few background Muggles, most of the characters aren't.

*****

It was only the first day of the Revival, but already he could see that something had gone terribly wrong.

Voldemort stared at the sight before him, his jaw dropping and his eyes bugging out. Realizing that this was not precisely the most imposing look for a Dark Lord with a face like his, he recovered himself and glared at the assembled women, one of whom looked guiltier than the rest. "Narcissa!" he yelled as the witch stepped forward. "Will you explain to me exactly what is the meaning of this?!"

Narcissa gave a short curtsey as she nervously looked at the Dark Lord. "Well, the thing is, my Lord...ah...well, you see, this is...well, this is part of our contribution to your revival. We thought that some redecoration, both of ourselves and our minds, was in order and red is so suitable because it's the colour of blood, and that's rather what we...er, besides, although black is and always will be a classic colour, the thing is that red is far more fashionable this year...we've decided that just because we serve you, my Lord...which is a privilege that no right-minded witch or wizard would ever turn down...we don't have to be dressed in boring black all the time. Red seems suitable, especially as a tribute to those imposing eyes of yours...er, if your Lordship approves, that is..."

Voldemort would have raised an eyebrow if he'd had any. "And if I do not? After all, it is such a...Gryffindor colour."

Narcissa turned as red as the robes she was wearing. "Well, my Lord, I...that is to say, we...had hoped that you wouldn't mind. The Rouge Death Eaters, after all, are still at your service. We just chose red as our uniform, that's all, and since we're supposed to be your handmaids and I read in a book somewhere that handmaids wear red..."*

Her master's scarlet stare was not encouraging.

Narcissa took the hint. With cheeks a similar hue to those of the robes she was wearing, she straightened her shoulders and spoke. "Ah, well. It was just an idea. All right, ladies, let's change these things back to the way they were..."

*Some years ago, Narcissa had idly picked up a copy of The Handmaid's Tale in a somewhat misguided attempt to see what Muggle life was really like. She never made it through the entire book, but she thought that if that was really how Muggles lived, then perhaps a life ruled by the Dark Lord would actually seem like a favour.

*****

And then there was the problem of the marquee. Voldemort didn't think he'd seen such a problem with an erection since Bellatrix Lestrange had "accidentally" hit Antonin Dolohov in the private bits with the Cruciatus.

Snape was stomping around the grounds, swearing at various other Death Eaters as they tried to erect the marquee. His shouts of "No, Crabbe, you nitwit, it's wingardium leviosa, not winglehampton leviathan!" and "Lucius, you incredible moron, the poles are supposed to be vertical, not horizontal!" could be heard at least a mile around. The marquee itself, made from the finest black canvas with the familiar Dark Mark pictured in silver and green, was still in a heap on the ground as Snape tried to orchestrate its raising.

Voldemort strolled up to the scene of the chaos and asked mildly, "Everything all right, Snape?"

Snape scowled. "Absolutely brilliant, My Lord. Give me another week and perhaps these twits will have exhausted every possible mistake they could make while erecting a marquee and so will, by complete accident, actually put the thing up correctly."

"Careful, Severus. These are your Brothers, after all."

Snape muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like "Bloody inbred pure-blood morons!" Just as Voldemort was about to command him to repeat it, his eyes went wide and as Voldemort ducked he shouted, "Avery, watch where you're swinging that...OOF!"

Goyle Senior poked his head into the mess. "Did somebody mention eggs?"

While Snape was swearing profusely enough to make even Voldemort blush, Lucius motioned Goyle over to where he was standing. "I think that if you pull this rope here, Goyle, you can straighten out the central pole. I'd do it, but I don't want to get rope burn. Besides, you're stronger. Do it!" So Goyle did it.

When the dust had settled, the Death Eaters located the central pole sticking out of the roof of a Muggle barn about two miles away. The marquee floated back down over the site of the Revival, trapping several luckless Death Eaters under its heavy spread.

"BLOODY FUCKING HELL!" Snape shouted as he wrestled himself free. Voldemort would've raised an eyebrow if he'd had any to raise. "And I mean it in the most respectful of ways as possible, Master," said Snape, not looking in the least bit repentant.

"Of course you do, Severus," said Voldemort, sounding deceptively mild.

Stalking off to see if any of the other Death Eaters were still trapped beneath the canvas, Snape swore again.

*****

Now, Voldemort wasn't precisely the sort of wizard who tolerated any kind of mistakes from his followers. Of course, he didn't mercilessly Crucio the Death Eaters to ensure that they were afraid of him; many of the Death Eaters being ex-Slytherins, he knew very well that their ambition would lead them to the other side. After all, why risk certain torture when you could get a nice hot meal and the knowledge that you were safe from Azkaban? Furthermore, he knew that purposely alienating his Death Eaters was a Very Bad Idea; should he suddenly start to randomly torture his followers, they just might decide to sabotage The Cause from within. After all, Slytherins being as sneaky and ambitious as they are, one of them might take it into his or her head to ensure that this enterprise would suddenly and irrevocably go pear-shaped so that she or he could achieve world domination instead.

So why would such ambitious human beings become part of an evil organization where there was only one leader and absolutely no prospects of advancement, even if their crazy scheme to rule the world did come off without any further Potter-shaped hitches? The answer is deceptively simple.

Even if Snape never took advantage of it, Voldemort offered a great dental plan.

*****

Finally, when they had managed to erect the tent with no further mishaps, they noticed a curious crowd gathered around. "'Scuse me, mate," one clearly Muggle man said to Malfoy with perplexity in his voice, "but I 'adn't 'eard that the circus was coming this week."

Voldemort sighed. "All right, who cast the Muggle-Repelling Charm?"

Predictably, nobody stood forward. The man who had spoken before looked at Voldemort and said, "You're that bloke who had that accident a few years back, right?"

Voldemort glared; the man took a step backwards. "Yes, I am. I am also having a very bad day and, if I please, I can ensure that you have a similar accident here and now if I have to answer any more of your ridiculous questions!"

"Only...'ow can you live without a nose on?"

"LEAVE! NOW! AND NEVER COME BACK!"

"All right, all right, I only wanted to know..." the man kept muttering as he walked away, clearly impressed by Voldemort's capacity for shouting. The others in the crowd, unsure what Voldemort had meant by his threat, wandered off in disappointment. After all, most of them had been quite looking forward to seeing the circus. But what fun could a circus be when the clowns were all dressed in black and the closest thing they'd got to an elephant was this weird grey bugger with red eyes and no nose?

*****

Once all the appropriate Memory Charms had been cast and after he had seen to the Muggle-Repelling Charm himself, Voldemort finally took his place at the front of the "room" formed by the marquee, politely allowing his followers to sit and then, in his most majestic voice commanded them to "Stand and recite the Death Eaters' motto!"

The assembled Death Eaters broke into a confused murmur and MacNair, after arguing some point extensively with Lucius, Severus and Bellatrix...a foolhardy move if ever there was one...reluctantly raised his hand. "Yes, Walden?" asked Voldemort, his red eyes flashing his displeasure.

In a voice so squeaky that he might've been one of Pettigrew's rodent friends, MacNair said, "Er, Master, forgive me, but...none of us seems to know what our motto is...er...we do have one, don't we?"

Before Voldemort could respond with a well-placed Cruciatus, Crabbe jumped up, waving his hand wildly. "They're over there," said the Dark Lord absently, gesturing towards the portable toilets set up just outside of the East side of the marquee. "No, my Lord," Crabbe said. "I know the motto!"

Amazed that one of his dimmest followers had actually been able to string together such a sentence, Voldemort let him continue.

"It's Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum, isn't it, Master?"

Lucius slapped his henchman on the back of the head. "No, you idiot, it's Quando omni flunkus, moritati."

"Absolutely not!" barked Severus. "Although I must say that after all these years I still think it's probably not quite correct and not really what we ought to have gone for as a Dark Motto, it's actually Aut vivam in aeternam, aut temptabundus moriturus sum! Does that sound familiar to any of you dunderheads?"

The assembly of Death Eaters had to admit that he had a point. Rodolphus Lestrange's lips moved as if he were trying to figure out what the motto meant and suddenly burst out laughing.

"Is there something amusing which you'd care to share with your Dark Breathren, Rodolphus?" asked Voldemort, feeling ever more like a schoolteacher. He could almost be glad that Dumbledore had turned him down as a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher after all...

"Er, my Lord, it's only that our motto translates roughly to 'I will live forever, or die trying'. Ah, shouldn't we have something that's a little more...dignified?" he asked. Seeing his Master's angry glare, he paled and stammered, "I-I-I g-guess not, My L-lord. S-s-s-orry to offend."

"You should be glad that I am not inclined to make you sorrier," Voldemort grumbled.

"Yes, Master."

Voldemort glared at his assembled minions. "Would anybody else care to insult our noble Dark Motto?" Although he thought he caught Snape muttering something about "noble" and "Dark Motto" being a contradiction in terms, nobody else felt moved to comment about it.

*****

Author's Notes: I like writing Snape in this story, even if he is more volatile than the Snape I usually write. I know I may be overstating his temper a bit, but it's wonderfully therapeutic.

The Handmaid's Tale is, of course, a book written by Margaret Atwood. It's actually one of the two novels she's ever written that I've ever actually liked, though perhaps "like" is the wrong word. I first read it when I was about nineteen, and I've been fascinated by it ever since...horrified, in a way, because she has said that when she was writing this she didn't do anything to her characters that hadn't been done already in real life, but fascinated nonetheless.

Voldemort's "LEAVE! NOW! AND NEVER COME BACK!" is a minor tribute to one of my favourite films..."The Two Towers". While I still prefer to read The Lord of the Rings rather than watch it, I am nonetheless very fond of the movies, especially "The Two Towers"...and, it must be said, I prefer the extended versions of all three to their theatrical release.

The "OOF!" and "Did somebody mention eggs?" joke may seem a little obscure to anyone who doesn't speak French. The French word for "egg" is "oeuf" (pronounced something like "euf"). It's often mispronounced as "oof" by people who are learning to speak French.

"Stercus, stercus, stercus, moriturus sum" is from Terry Pratchett's book Interesting Times. Rincewind the "Wizzard" (Pratchett's spelling, not mine), says it when Pretty Butterfly tells him to say something "in Wizard language". The translation as given by Pretty Butterfly is "O Excrement, I am about to die". As this is very close to what he's really trying to say, I think I'll leave it here...I'm sure you can figure it out well enough yourselves. =)

"Quando omni flunkus, moritati" is from "The Red Green Show"...it's Possum Lodge's motto, and it's supposed to mean "When all else fails, play dead". As I've largely stopped watching TV in recent years, I suppose it's quite telling that this is one of the few shows I'd actually still watch if I had the time. The series itself ended in 2003 after 13 years, but there are still stations which show it as a re-run. As far as I know, there are clips available on YouTube; I encourage you to check them out, though the humour may take some getting used to.

"Aut vivam in aeternam, aut temptabundus moriturus sum" is my own creation. I know very little about Latin, but then, "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus" is, I hear, not quite perfect itself. In any case, this motto is supposed to mean precisely what Lestrange thinks it means..."I will live forever, or die trying". Very fitting for Voldemort, I thought.

More to come next week.