Chapter 270: Careless, and Voldemort Loses His Beloved Serpent
After Newt Apparated away, this stretch of Albanian forest seemed to sink back into an undisturbed silence.
About a hundred metres from that tree hollow, deep within the layered canopy overhead.
A lead-grey viper lay coiled without a sound along a thick, horizontal branch.
Its triangular head poked out just past the sheltering leaves, its eyes fixed on the spot where Newt had stood and vanished, tongue flicking out now and then.
This was far from normal.
It was the dead of winter; any ordinary snake ought to have been dormant long since.
Then, suddenly, thin wisps of black mist, dense enough to seem almost solid, began seeping out from between the viper's fine scales.
The viper's body stiffened all at once, and the eyes that had held the cold, glinting sheen of a living reptile lost every trace of light in an instant, turning as dull and grey as dust-covered glass.
A soft thud.
Robbed of whatever inner force had been holding it up, the snake's body went slack and lifeless, dropping straight down from the branch to crash onto the cold, hard ground below, twitching faintly once before all life left it for good.
And on the branch where the viper had lain coiled, a jet-black spectral shape slowly took form, its edges shifting and rippling without rest.
It held no fixed shape, more a mass of shadow too dense to disperse, and where a face's eye sockets should have been, two faint patches of pulsing, blood-red mist hung suspended instead.
This was Voldemort.
Ever since his pitiful servant Quirrell's body had been destroyed at Hogwarts the previous year, this fatally weakened remnant of a soul had gone fleeing in a hurried panic, drifting at last to this remote stretch of Albanian forest.
Those two patches of blood-red "eyes" stayed fixed on the empty patch of ground where Newt had vanished, the whole spectral mass trembling violently with fury and frustration, the temperature in the area around it dropping sharply as a result.
Damn it! Newt Scamander! Why was he here, of all places?!
Voldemort held a basic knowledge of the notable figures across the wizarding world, especially those who hadn't clearly stood on his side during the war of the past, or those whose particular talents might pose a threat.
That wizard just now, carrying his signature enchanted suitcase and keeping company with creatures, had taken only a moment to identify.
How had Newt come across Nagini, of all people? And taken her away, no less?!
The very thought sent the black mist of Voldemort's spectral form churning even more violently.
Even stripped of a body, reduced to the most wretched sort of wandering spirit, his gift for Parseltongue had never left him.
He held firm to the belief that it was proof of the blood he'd inherited from his great ancestor, Salazar Slytherin, a symbol of both bloodline and power.
Over his days drifting through this forest, Voldemort had used that very gift to establish a connection with that massive, distinctively scented dark green serpent, Nagini.
That snake had been far too special.
She was neither an ordinary beast, nor any sort of magical creature.
Whenever they communed, Voldemort could clearly sense an intelligence and a spiritual awareness in her that went well beyond any ordinary snake's, one that could even grasp his own complicated thoughts and feelings.
Through those years of weakness and isolation, able only to cling to life by possessing lesser animals, this clever and powerful serpent had become almost the only being Voldemort could call a "companion," offering him a twisted sort of comfort, something like a peculiar…
friend.
A subtle but stable magical bond had already taken shape between them.
Voldemort had it all planned out: once he'd gathered a little more strength, he'd find the chance to kill someone, split off a portion of his soul, and lodge it within Nagini, turning her into his Horcrux, immortal alongside him, a companion forever!
And yet all of that had just been thrown into disarray!
Why, why had Newt Scamander turned up in this godforsaken wilderness?!
Fury and confusion burned through his weakened soul.
Just now, sensing from a distance that Newt was closing in and facing off against Nagini, he'd tried, through that special bond, to send Nagini the command to attack.
Nagini had seemed to respond at first, so why had the attack suddenly failed? How had that Scamander dodged it?
Too far away, and hampered both by his own soul's extreme frailty and by the limits of possessing an ordinary viper's body, Voldemort hadn't clearly made out the bursts of magic flashing at Newt's wrist and waist; all he'd seen was Nagini lunge, and then, inexplicably, get subdued and carried off.
Years upon years of studying how Dark Magic corroded the soul, along with the pain and confusion of one failure after another, gnawed at Voldemort's already unstable remnant of a soul.
The roiling black mist surged violently, adding a bone-deep chill to the already cold air of the surrounding patch of forest.
The previous year at Hogwarts, on top of Harry Potter, whom he'd expected, some infuriating boy called Leonardo had turned up out of nowhere as well, and after a clash with him, Voldemort's soul had come out of it even weaker and more unstable than before.
Now all he could do was try possessing small animals in the forest, but even the snakes that suited him best, their fragile animal bodies couldn't sustain a soul as saturated with dark magic as his for long; they'd collapse and die within a matter of days, more often than not.
Voldemort needed to find some way, and quickly, to gather enough life force to nourish and strengthen his soul, his goal still the same: seize a true human body, or find some way to rebuild flesh of his own.
Nagini had been one part of that plan, a ready-made, powerful ally.
And now what?
How had this Newt Scamander come crashing in out of nowhere, of all things?!
A savage killing intent spread like venom through every corner of Voldemort's soul.
Once he, once the great Dark Lord, had a body free to move as he pleased again, he'd hunt down Newt Scamander, kill him in the most agonising way possible, and then take back what was rightfully his, Nagini!
And that boy, Leonardo…
The mist of his soul flared violently for an instant.
Everyone who stood in his way, everyone who'd brought him the shame of failure, deserved to die.
All of them deserved to die…