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ลำดับตอนที่ #2 : vv

 The two men appeared out of nowhere, a few yards apart in the narrow, moonlit 

lane. For a second they stood quite still, wands directed at each other's chests; then, 

recognizing each other, they stowed their wands beneath their cloaks and started walking 

briskly in the same direction. 

    "News?" asked the taller of the two. 

    "The best," replied Severus Snape. 

The lane was bordered on the left by wild, low-growing brambles, on the right by a high, 

neatly manicured hedge. The men's long cloaks flapped around their ankles as they 

marched. 

    "Thought I might be late," said Yaxley, his blunt features sliding in and out of sight as 

the branches of overhanging trees broke the moonlight. "It was a little trickier than I 

expected. But I hope he will be satisfied. You sound confident that your reception will be 

good?" 

    Snape nodded, but did not elaborate. They turned right, into a wide driveway that led 

off the lane. The high hedge curved into them, running off into the distance beyond the 

pair of imposing wrought-iron gates barring the men’s way. Neither of them broke step: 

In silence both raised their left arms in a kind of salute and passed straight through, as 

though the dark metal was smoke. 

  The yew hedges muffled the sound of the men’s footsteps. There was a rustle 

somewhere to their right: Yaxley drew his wand again pointing it over his companion’s 

head, but the source of the noise proved to be nothing more than a pure-white peacock, 

strutting majestically along the top of the hedge. 

  “He always did himself well, Lucius. Peacocks …” Yaxley thrust his wand back 

under his cloak with a snort. 

  A handsome manor house grew out of the darkness at the end of the straight drive, 

lights glinting in the diamond paned downstairs windows. Somewhere in the dark garden 

beyond the hedge a fountain was playing. Gravel crackled beneath their feet as Snape and 

Yaxley sped toward the front door, which swung inward at their approach, though 

nobody had visibly opened it. 

  The hallway was large, dimly lit, and sumptuously decorated, with a magnificent 

carpet covering most of the stone floor. The eyes of the pale-faced portraits on the wall 

followed Snape and Yaxley as they strode past. The two men halted at a heavy wooden 

door leading into the next room, hesitated for the space of a heartbeat, then Snape turned 

the bronze handle. 

  The drawing room was full of silent people, sitting at a long and ornate table. The 

room’s usual furniture had been pushed carelessly up against the walls. Illumination 

came from a roaring fire beneath a handsome marble mantelpiece surmounted by a gilded 

mirror. Snape and Yaxley lingered for a moment on the threshold. As their eyes grew 

accustomed to the lack of light, they were drawn upward to the strangest feature of the 

scene: an apparently unconscious human figure hanging upside down over the table, 

revolving slowly as if suspended by an invisible rope, and reflected in the mirror and in 

the bare, polished surface of the table below. None of the people seated underneath this singular sight were looking at it except for a pale young man sitting almost directly below 

it. He seemed unable to prevent himself from glancing upward every minute or so. 

  “Yaxley. Snape,” said a high, clear voice from the head of the table. “You are 

very nearly late.” 

  The speaker was seated directly in front of the fireplace, so that it was difficult, at 

first, for the new arrivals to make out more than his silhouette. As they drew nearer, 

however, his face shone through the gloom, hairless, snakelike, with slits for nostrils and 

gleaming red eyes whose pupils were vertical. He was so pale that he seemed to emit a 

pearly glow.