Harry Potter and Claire Smith's Adventures: Book Four

Cracking Cases & Sleazy Faces

Chapter 20: Cracking Cases & Sleazy Faces

Claire knew she was dreaming—or seeing into some part of time as her father described it. She was back in the dimly lit room with the identical drumming pattern repeating quietly in the background. The unchanged tattered chair was in the same spot. It's inhabited was Voldemort in his baby-like grayish form. Wormtail stood by the left side of the chair looking as nervous as she last saw him. Claire's eyes travelled to the fireplace where she recognized the hooded figure from the Yule Ball—or at least suspected it was the same stranger.

"You fool! You could've exposed yourself!" Voldemort shouted, his red eyes turning crimson.

"I'm sorry." The hooded figure replied.

As the figure spoke, his voice sounded distorted. However, she could tell it was a male voice.

"I gave you one simple task and yet again you've ruined it. Wormtail!" Voldemort snapped his head towards the rat-like man.

Wormtail tensed. "Yes, my Lord?"

"Perhaps a bit of pain will teach him to obey orders." Voldemort sneered.

Wormtail raised his wand (his hand was shaking) aiming it at the figure. "C-Crucio!"

The figure let out a cry of pain, falling to the floor. Claire averted her eyes feeling like she was going to throw up; she'd experienced that curse first-hand back in second year. A slight pang of sympathy ran through her for the person. What felt like hours of the man's tortured screams, were, in reality, merely a few seconds before Wormtail lifted the curse. The man laid on the ground for a few minutes trying to gain control of his breath.

"You involved yourself in a task that was not yours." Voldemort said to the man. "It was Anwir's job to get close to that girl and bring her to me at the end of the ball. You were there as a reinforcement to make sure Anwir completed the task and returned with the girl. Not to kill him before!"

Claire froze. Was she hearing him right? Jeremy was the insider? No. He couldn't be one of Voldemort's followers, right? Claire continued to listen to their conversation.

"Perhaps, my Lord, you should give the task to him..." Claire turned around startled by the new voice. Her breath hitched in her throat as she saw the man who looked like her father.

Voldemort's gaze left the tortured man on the floor to the one who resembled her father.

Voldemort's piercing red eyes locked with his for a few moments, as though communicating a secret message. "So be it, Doctor."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Claire awoke with a start. She glanced at her bedside table looking at the empty bottle of the Dreamless Sleeping Potion.

"A lot of good that did..." She muttered, sitting up.

Claire glanced around her empty dorm. The memories from the previous night and the dream flashed through her mind at warp speed. She ran a hand through her hair frustratedly trying to understand it all. A sickening feeling settled in her stomach. She thought she could trust these two people and now she's finding they're somehow connected to Voldemort. Beware the pretender. Trelawney's warning from her first Divination class of the year echoed through her mind. She was starting to think maybe Trelawney wasn't as crazy as she seemed.

Despite Voldemort calling the man who looked her father the Doctor, she felt there was something off about her father working for Voldemort. It just didn't make sense to her. Claire suspected her father was at Grimmauld Place when she had her first dream about Voldemort during the summer. Though she couldn't be too sure considering she'd been staying at the Weasleys' those nights. However, Claire knew for a fact her father had been with her mother at the Ministry to get Sirius off house arrest the night of the World Cup. Surely the Doctor couldn't have been in two places at once. Then again he did have a time machine. Her father wouldn't give her, his only daughter, to Voldemort. And the Doctor just didn't seem to fit the criteria as one of Voldemort's followers.