One for sorrow, two for mirth,Three for a wedding, four for a birth,Five for silver, six for gold,Se

In the beginning there is only one man with dreams of immortality. Lord Voldemort he calls himself, and bids his friends call him by this new name. They say the name solemnly.

And when he turns away, they laugh up their sleeves.

Then one of them has an idea. We are respectable young men, he says, fine upstanding citizens of this land. 

Why do we not use this unknown with pretensions to greatness to meet our own ends?

The four consider his proposition. One joins for wealth. One joins for power. One joins for the rest. The last joins because it is the first who proposed it.

Five for silver and a bright future.

Then comes six, a family friend of the first, from a different land where dark and light magic are all the same. He will bring them magic and magicians from this land, where knowledge that is secret here is traded openly and loudly debated in the conference rooms of their Ministry.

Seven is a sad crow indeed, a young man in ragged clothes, snarling and raging at the world - met with a tragic accident not a few years ago and in a moment went from a bright young thing to nobody in particular, outcast and tramp.

Seven brings eight with him. Snarling and raging, ready to do the bidding of the others as long as they have blood, blood and more blood.

Nine joins out of fear, to save his children from the coming darkness.

Ten joins because if he is to be a butcher, then he would make such a butchery that it would go down in song and story.

Ten crows for the devil himself.

While The One, their noble leader is gone - finding magic that the world has long since forgotten, marked only in old stories crones tell children to scare them into behaving, for himself - they gather in silence and slowly build. An empire, a fully fledged war machine to set in motion when The One returns.

And as they gather in silence, wizarding Britain continues, oblivious, blissfully happy, not knowing that in a few years their world will be plunged into a war the like of which they have never seen.

For now, all is well, as the crows simply gather and watch.