"Anyway, I need to see results within six months, understand?" Voldemort added.
Snape acknowledged this, and Draco nodded eagerly.
Voldemort was very pleased, and his hand on Draco's shoulder tightened, and a thick black gas began to pour out of his shoulder where it touched his palm.
Draco hissed softly and clenched his teeth so tightly that he felt as if his shoulders were being burned by hot iron.
If not for Voldemort's might, he would have shouted.
After what seemed like an eternity, the hand was withdrawn, and the pain was finally over. Draco collapsed to his knees, cold sweat covering his forehead and back.
"This is part of the reward I gave you in advance," Voldemort said.
A reward? Draco was confused. He thought the Dark Lord was torturing him.
Draco hurriedly pulled off his collar and saw a skull mark on his shoulder.
A black python slithered out of the skull, looking extremely magical and alive.
This is the Dark Mark?!
Draco recognized it immediately. He had seen the exact same design on his father's arm, so he knew it was the Death Eater emblem.
Half a day ago, Draco would have been overjoyed. He had always considered being a Death Eater to be extremely impressive, but now he had no mind for it. All he could think about was the assassination mission…
Because of the lack of Death Eaters and the lack of a lengthy speech from Lord Voldemort, the meeting lasted little more than an hour.
Upon receiving the order, the Death Eaters did not dare to linger, and quickly used Disapparation to disperse.
Snape stepped out of the Riddle House, thinking back to his conversation with Dumbledore in the Hogwarts Tower ten days earlier.
[If one day, after my death, Lord Voldemort suddenly fell into a great terror and lived in constant fear, then the time had come!]
Snape frowned deeply. He had assumed that Dumbledore's brain had been fried by the potion he had brewed, but this did not seem to be the case…
Whether it was the Fidelius Charm enveloping the entire station, or the fact that Draco and I were ordered to investigate and assassinate Ivan Hals, it all proved one thing.
Lord Voldemort was so powerful that the entire wizarding world feared him!
Fear a fifteen-year-old brat.
And that person's name is not Harry Potter…
This gave Snape a ridiculous feeling, and made him even more curious about what had happened in Knockturn Alley that night, and why Lord Voldemort had been beaten into flight.
Could this be… part of your plan?
Dumbledore?
… .
A few days passed in the blink of an eye, and the whole Knockturn Alley was transformed under the forced intervention of the Enforcers, including Fran.
The debris and rubbish that used to be piled up in the corner were cleaned up, and the unemployed people wandering the streets were all caught and forced to participate in the street transformation.
Not only that, but enthusiastic enforcers would go door-to-door, explaining the new rules of Knockturn Alley and handing out copies of the New Age Declaration.
According to the Regulators, the book contained the Lord's magnificent ideas, which every wizard in Knockturn Alley had to know and understand.
Every three months, they would conduct an examination, in which those who failed would be imprisoned and used as experimental subjects.
Under such intimidation and pressure, Knockturn Alley was transformed in just a few days, with law-abiding slogans being placed on every door.
The two Aurors who entered to investigate witnessed such a harmonious scene.
"We're not in the wrong place, are we, Captain?" Sunny asked, looking around at the plaque that read "Lecture, Tree-New Wind".
Three years ago, she had visited Knockturn Alley several times, and vaguely remembered that the street was very chaotic at the time, and that there were often dark wizards with ill intentions squatting nearby, looking at her strangely and making her feel uncomfortable.
Now, however, Knockturn Alley was completely different. It didn't smell as bad as it used to, and all the Dark Wizards with bad intentions were gone.
Had Knockturn Alley changed so much over the years?
For a moment, Sunny found this hard to accept.
"How would I know? But this must be Knockturn Alley!" Dawlish shook her head, equally surprised by the change in Knockturn Alley.
This was a gathering place for Dark Wizards, a place that was usually out of the Ministry's control, but now it seemed to be in good order, with slogans plastered all around the walls.
With his keen Auror instincts, Dawlish was one hundred percent certain that something was amiss.
The two of them exchanged a few words, then decided to talk to a few people before deciding what to do.
"Hello, ma'am, I heard there was a fight in Knockturn Alley the other day, is that right?" Sunny asked.
"No, you're mistaken. There was no conflict," the witch said, narrowing her eyes and smiling. "It was just some friendly wizards having a nice bonfire."
"A bonfire?" Sunny's eyes widened.
Dawlish's mouth twitched.
The middle-aged witch nodded and described the scene of the bonfire party to the two of them vividly. In the latter half of the night, a few drunk wizards were interested in competing in magic, but they burned down a house and caused a lot of chaos…
Dawlish was dubious.
The other party's claims were somewhat bizarre, but they were at least more plausible than nonsense like the Dark Lord escaping from Knockturn Alley.
"So what's with all this stuff?" Sunny asked curiously, pointing to the posters that covered the street.
The middle-aged witch explained with emotion. The chaotic situation in Knockturn Alley a few years ago made every wizard who lived there feel pain in their hearts.
So this year, they spontaneously banded together to drive away the Dark Wizards who were causing trouble and decided to re-establish their home.
And these slogans are their vision of a better future!
Sunny and Dawlish looked at each other, then numbly said goodbye to the witch and walked down the tidy street, their minds full of question marks.
I'm afraid I came to a fake Knockturn Alley…