Voldemort (Character Study)
Growing bored with Nott’s screams, the Great Lord Voldemort lifted his wand with an air of a man offering undeserved mercy, letting the Crutatious Curse drop. He had taken pleasure in punishing his Death Eaters one at a time over the past two weeks - only the ones that had abandoned him after his discorperation, of course. The Mark was for life - a soul contract - and violating it meant penance must be paid.
His followers watched on with glee. Nott was the last of them, and they knew that soon they’d be inflicting that same pain on muggles. He watched on with mild disgust. He would never admit it, but he despised a great number of his followers. To sell their submission to an outsider, a mudblood, then turn around and ache about blood purity while torturing muggles?
Voldemort was not fond of animal cruelty. The muggles were hateful creatures, but he had long grown past delighting in their misery while they couldn’t defend themselves. It was rather tacky.
Morons, the lot of them, but his Death Eaters had the same power he had. Magic ran through their veins - in fact, they had the advantage of being raised on duelling. They could most certainly defend themselves. They were his equals once, and had lowered themselves willingly to his playthings.
Voldemort often wondered how they hadn’t yet figured out that he didn’t care at all about their ridiculous cause. He hadn’t even pretended to believe it since his Hogwarts days, when he had first realized that getting the stuffy pureblood heirs to stumble over themselves trying to impress him was hilarious. Watching them declare themselves the property of a mudblood was beyond hysterical. From there, he figured he’d see how he could get in a world completely run by a gaggle of incompetent inbred sadists.
The answer was very far.