For a moment, he looked at her, and Jenna had the insolence to look right back, not breaking the gaze as any other death-eater would have. Voldemort seemed, if anything, amused by the defiance.

“Glad to see you could make it, Jenna,” he said, straightening up to his full height. He was tall, much taller than her. Time would take away the beauty, the elegance, the handsomeness, however – any and all good looks he possessed, right now, would turn into a plain picture of horror, in much less than a decade.

Sudden fire erupted in Jenna White’s eyes. They were a pure gray, and when she was angry, they seemed to acquire a darker tincture that, for all her fury, was lovely to behold. “You were behind that,” she accused. “That idiot was here on your command.”

The fact that she had chosen to call one of his most feared dark creatures an ‘idiot,’ did not fail to amuse him. The corners of his mouth turned up in a smile, one that was extremely cold, for all of its namesake. He shrugged her choice of words off – Jenna decided then that he had expected what had happened – that he was satisfied by it -- that she wanted to grab him by the shoulders, and shake him, hard. Ice and pretense, she could comprehend. Ice and pretense in him, not simultaneously.

“A good death eater is always alert, Jenna. A good death does not care for origins, either. It was I, this time. It could be anyone else, the time next.”

“So what if I’m a bad death eater!” she snapped at him, choking back her tears once more. They were not tears of grief or anger, only a reminder of Nature – she could ignore the pain, her body could not. It needed to be taken care of, to be healed. “You can’t – the hell, you have no right –”

“Jenna!”

Perhaps it was regard for him that quieted her, then; perhaps - more likely - the knowledge that her outburst would achieve little, unless she wanted to come into direct conflict with him – though, of course, Jenna sometimes thought she was, always had been, in direct conflict with him – and that he knew it, as well as she did. She looked away and, for lack of anything better, down, at her arm. That was quite a mistake, she realized the very moment she had made it. For all her bravery – real or perceived – she was not a heartless person.

More importantly, she was not a child. She knew that, out there, had been no normal wolf and, correspondingly, the wound was not a normal one, either. She could hazard a pretty good guess, here, that it was an aptly-cursed one. The kind he designed especially, to ensure that they could never be healed, unless he himself came forward to do so. He knew the antidotes, as fully as he knew his own poisons, and yet he never chose to use the former.

Voldemort, apparently, had none of this on his mind. He had straightened up again, and moved away from the door, to step into the hallway that it led into. Inside, the mansion was perfectly clean, perfectly organized, the very opposite of an old, old ruin, though the coldness remained, that of the exterior. “You were supposed to give me something,” Voldemort remarked, as the doors swung shut. “A flask you should have given me much earlier, if I remember correctly.” The last five words were said with the air of a man who knows they are not needed, and that he always remembers correctly, no matter what the occasion.

The flask of memories. Jenna had not forgotten. If he was one to remember, she was not one to forget, either. “Cut it out with the fancy words,” she said coldly, as she followed him inside. “You know you remember correctly. I would, too, if my life depended upon it,” she added, her lips almost curving into a smirk.

Voldemort glanced up, in a way that was more than a mild warning. She ignored the look rather pointedly, as she tossed the flask to hi,.

He caught it deftly, turning it over in the dim light. To the ordinary observer, the flask might have looked like a simple tool, one easy to handle, but Voldemort felt the protective magic that seemed to fluff round it, much like a blanket of sorts – which, in turn, reminded him of the protective magic she had employed outside, to get rid of the creature.

“That was... impressive magic you used on the wolf,” he remarked. “I see you never bothered to tell me of it.”

Now Jenna, she was starting to get impatient. Her shoulder was what they call a case of dire blood-loss, and it was hard for her to stand here, much less respond to what was probably the most unintelligent remark he had ever made, to her – of course, her magic was impressive. She was also quite, quite furious that he had done nothing about her arm, especially when he knew she was not going to meddle with a highly-cursed wound – the last thing she wanted to do, right now, was to aggravate it, or the pain.

“There are a lot of things I haven’t told you,” she said, coolly. “Oh, and did I ever mention? Lots of things I’m not going to tell you, either.”

For a moment, Voldemort looked up from the flask he was now examining in his cold, calculated way, and there was something deadly about his look. “I am too lenient with you,” he said, icily. “Perhaps you believe you can take advantage of that.”

“You think any female death eater comes in here thinking she can take advantage of something you do?” Jenna asked, pointedly. “Merlin’s pink toe, I just want you to fix my arm!”

Voldemort gave a laugh, a laugh whose handsomeness was marred by its lingering touch of cold. It was like he could not get rid of the ice – each act, each deed, each word of his bore it, in its heart, as an undeniable part. “Clever,” he remarked. “Very clever of you to realize it would be a cursed wound. Many others would have wasted their time trying to fix the wound on their own. Which would,” he added, quite indifferently. “Only aggravated it.”

“I’m asking you to fix it," Jenna said, coldly. "Don't mistake yourself into thinking that this is a request."

He turned round, to face her. “Why don’t you fix it yourself?” he suggested, in a voice that implied he was remarking about the change in the day’s weather. “Pride does come before a fall, my dear Jenna - and you seem to pride over your abilities, quite frequently. Let us see, tonight, how... impressive your magic is, Jenna.”

She decided, right there, right then, that perhaps she was capable of hate, after all.