It's All Just Temporary with a Bit of Necromancy

Chapter 38: It's Your Bloody Dark Mark

It's Your Bloody Dark Mark

"Master Death Master. Master Death Master."

The squeaky voice grated on his ears and made him aware of the headache pounding at his temples. Harry groaned. This seemed to only encourage the voice that had now grown an arm and was shaking him gently. Raaja hissed in displeasure at the disturbance.

"Master Death Master, you is being needing to be awake. It is being urgent."

Harry sighed but opened his eyes. His body felt heavy like it usually did after a meeting with Death, but he could feel that his magic was stronger than normal. The veil had worked as it was meant to. However, despite not being fully magically drained, the standard levels of

physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion were just as prevalent. With great effort, Harry raised his head to look at Tobi who stood at the side of his bed wringing the Daily Prophet fretfully between his hands.

"Tobi?" Harry asked, his voice rough and scratchy. Luckily there was a glass of water on his bedside table. Pushing himself into a sitting position, he grabbed the glass and proceeded to drain it. Judging by the anxiety radiating off of the small elf, he'd need to be fully focused on the conversation.

"Oh Master Death Master, Tobi is being sorry for waking you but Great Master is wishing you is being informed."

"Informed about what, Tobi?" A cold pool of dread started to grow in Harry's gut.

"Oh, Master Death Master," Tobi whimpered fretfully, twisting the paper in his hand even more.

"Let me see the newspaper, Tobi," Harry said as calmly as he could. The elf immediately handed over the wrinkled paper — which was actually two different papers — and without them to occupy his hands proceeded to start wringing his ears and rocking on his heels. Raaja uncoiled himself from his preferred place on Harry's pillow and slithered onto Harry's forearm as if sensing that something unpleasant occurring.

Slowly, Harry unfolded the papers and smoothed out the wrinkles, laying them out on his blanket-covered lap before allowing himself to actually look at the front pages: a morning and evening edition apparently. The picture caught his eye first — the same one for each paper — and the pool of dread in his stomach hardened into a ball of lead. It was black and white but Harry could vividly imagine the sickly green color of the skull and snake hovering in the night sky. The burning remains of buildings took up the bottom section of the picture. The headings and subheadings varied but all said similar versions of the same thing.

Death Eater Attack --- Dark Mark Spotted --- Muggle Town Destroyed --- Death Toll Unknown

Harry sucked in a breath. Cold anger flared in his chest, burning away the heavyweight of dread in his stomach. Mayhem, destruction, fear, and panic were surely running rampant around the wizarding world right now.

Why would Marvolo do this? What had sparked the sudden change in direction? This went against all of their plans! What happened to disrupt everything? Had Marvolo gone insane! Had this happened before or after Marvolo met him in his office last night after returning from Calling the Longbottoms? Had Marvolo escorted him to bed fresh from a muggle murdering rampage or had Marvolo sent him off to bed with the intention of slipping away as Harry naively slept?

Anger building and thoughts swirling, Harry threw off his covers and stumbled out of bed. He pulled off the white ritual shirt and pulled on his soft, post-Death meeting pants. Raaja tightened around his arm and hissed for him to remain resting but Harry ignored him. Tobi stopped wringing his ears to watch Harry with wide, fearful eyes.