994 Cardinal Number Ⅱ

The manor is warmly decorated in red and gold colors filled with memorabilia of the Chudley Cannons. It made sense considering this was the home of the Quidditch Team owner, Linus Gamp. The arrogant-eyed, proud, wild-haired Linus Gamp sat in a chair with his knee crossed over the other. "The giants attacked Rowle manor," he commented to the men and women standing before him.

A puppet under the Imperius curse moves forward to answer. "We were present at the ball, the Death Eater, and the host, Livius Rowle knew nothing of the attack. Rowle fought against the giants to the death."

Turning towards a pinched-faced wizard, Linus Gamp furrows his brow. "How goes the next vessel transition?"

An unwilling expression crosses the wizard's face as his gaze becomes emotionless and a different voice emerges from his throat. "The subject is rather unwilling as of late. A brash coward with a stubborn streak a mile wide. One would think we would not have any trouble with such a weak-minded vessel, but apparently, there were previously undiscovered depths..."

"We have been rather unlucky as of late," Linus Gamp harped knowing full well the reason why. "We must move quickly the Puppet has already begun to suspect. We must be left blind. We must rejoin the puppet's circle!"

"Agreed," the pinch-faced wizard responded while the rest of the puppets under the Imperius curse remained blankly standing still with no trace of thoughts.

"We must not forget the vexing vessel at Hogwarts," calmly stated the voice of a young man. "Having grown weak in numbers, we have begun to spread ourselves thin. That particular vessel against impossible odds has managed more than once to retake power and has begun to lock us out." And it was most notable by the fact or rather lack of presence of a teenage girl.

"There is nothing to fear," chided, a confident intelligent male's voice. "The vessel at Hogwarts will easily return in due to time to the collective. Our priority at present is to destroy the puppet and remove his dark curse."

The collective has no time to respond when the wards of the manor abruptly shatter. Linus Gamp flinches in pain feeling a backlash wash over him. The majority of the collective immediately begins to retreat from his mind. "Puppets find the intruder and destroy them," Linus Gamp harshly commanded as the almost dozen puppets instantly move to obey. The last to follow is the current vessel in transition, the pinch-faced wizard.

Linus Gamp hastily reaches for the manor wards with his magic but feels that a powerful force has sealed the wards from his reach and does not permit him to reconnect to the manor wards. Confident that the puppets can handle any attack on the manor grounds, he moves deeper into the manor towards the physical location where the rune wards are housed. If the manor wards had been magically sealed from the outside, they still could be unsealed if he physically reconnected to the magic stored within the rune ward stones that are kept in the deepest part of the manor.

Passing through the red and crimson decorated halls, Linus Gamp fearlessly tromped into the manor before arriving in a dungeon. "Lumos," he whispered as a light burst from the tip of his wand to light up the dark dungeon before him. For a moment, he is temporarily blinded by the light and at that moment, he does not hear as so much feels the Full Body-Bind Curse paralyze him.

The wand drops from Linus Gamp's frozen hand as thick conjured ropes slither around his body effectively trapping him. "It has been many years, old friend. And I must say that you have grown old and fat," a sinister icy voice whispered.

A wary expression crosses Linus Gamp's frozen face in recognition of the voice. It was a voice; he had not physically heard since he was at Hogwarts. But as a vessel, he had heard that voice plenty of times as a Death Eater.

The torches in the dungeon burst aflame causing flickering light and shadows to appear. There standing directly before Linus Gamp is a crimson serpent-eyed wizard, Tom Marvolo Riddle known to all as the Dark Lord or Lord Voldemort. The tall, thin skeleton-like figure approaches Gamp rather leisurely.

"You seem surprised by my visit," Voldemort said with a bone-chilling smile. "It would seem that I am the most unwelcome of guests."

Fighting the body-binding curse, Linus Gamp is unable to answer as Voldemort steps closer to stand directly before him. "No matter, I am not here to have a long conversation." Staring into the depths of Gamps eyes, he says, "Legilimens."

Linus Gamp is unable to close his eyes as Voldemort tears into his mind. The vessel within Linus Gamp hurries to move but finds that Voldemort easily tears through its mind magic like a warm knife cutting into butter. The vessel can only desperately connect to the collective to cast Voldemort out.

Gasping Linus Gamp feels blood drip down his nose accompanied by a pounding headache. "You, filthy half-blood," he spat in anger. "How DARE you!" The collective was furious vowing to drink the very blood of the puppet.

A cruel expression of triumphant appears on Voldemort's face. "So that is your secret, old friend," he said with a vicious smile. "Yes, it all makes sense now."

"You know nothing," Linus Gamp snarled on behalf of the entire collective. "We are many and you are merely one."

"True," Voldemort said as he pensively twirled his wand in his hand. "Yet all of you are constrained by the birthing period of each vessel. Why it is even more than that of a woman giving birth!"

"We will destroy your, puppet," Linus Gamp arrogantly answered for the collective had vowed to kill him. "And soon my puppets will arrive to destroy you."

"I think not," Voldemort plainly said. "Wurfbog will have surely killed them by now. I am certain that he is removing their teeth to add them to his collection as we speak. A rather crude habit to have in my opinion."

Voldemort raised his wand up as Linus Gamp fiercely struggled in vain to escape and summon his fallen wand that was pressed under Voldemort's foot. "Tell the collective that I am coming for them."

Linus Gamp never has a chance to respond as Voldemort says, "Avada Kedavra." An eerie green light fills the chamber causing the torches to almost flickering out, before regaining their strength. The body of Linus Gamp grows still with his face frozen in an unspoken scream. A hissing Hydra rune symbol rises before dissipating like ashes in the wind as one more vessel is destroyed.

Voldemort does not bother vanishing the corpse but rather takes it away to use for his own purposes. Waste not, want not. And the body was suitable enough for his dark purposes to be made into an inferni.

As Voldemort passes through the hallways, he sets the garish red and golden items aflame. A roaring fire sweeps behind him hungrily consuming everything in its path. There would be nothing, but ashes and ruins left by morning.

Emerging into the moonlight, Voldemort traverses the destroyed and crimson-dyed grounds. "Our work here is done," he callously said to the giant, who gnawed on a tender fair arm.

Wurfbog continues to chew on the hand in response. He merely rises and menacingly stares down at the wizard, before swallowing. "Do not summon my giants again, wizard unless your Death Eaters are prepared to fight with us. I too have my own bottom line."

"You need not concern yourself with such details, giant," Voldemort dismissively replied. "But I will set your pitiful mind at ease, the next attack will be solely comprised of those that follow me. Still, you are to continue to run giant skirmishes as you see fit."

Wurfbog bared his rust-colored sharp teeth at Voldemort, before turning away into the night. Voldemort did not tarry after and returned to Gibbons Manor. Behind them, the flames continued to grow consuming the entire manor before dying off early morning having run out of things to burn. The destruction of the manor would not be discovered until the following day by muggle authorities (who would later be visited by various Oblivators). And even then, it would be filed away as merely an unfortunate fire that took the lives of several individuals if their charred bodies were anything to go by. Any inconsistencies were explained away by animals having tried to eat the bodies.

However, elsewhere far away high in the Gryffindor tower, a teenage girl wakes up loudly gasping in fear and horror. Her limbs shake as she violently shivers and wraps her arms around herself. Her dark brown hair is rather damp and plastered to her head from cold sweat. Her golden-brown eyes shake with utter terror and the knowledge of something so terrible that it can never be spoken out loud. She couldn't even run away from the truth, because how does one run away from oneself?!

Yet Mary MacDonald was a Gryffindor. She had already done the impossible once. And she would do it again.