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Tom gaped at his professor in disbelief. "I cannot believe you trust these people," he said. "When did they ever need proof of anything? They do as they please, especially now." |
Slughorn’s eyes were frightened and defeated. "Tom, please, let me have your wand. I will stand guard outside the room, how about that?" |
Tom was tempted, greatly tempted, just to strike Carrow dead as he stood. He knew how. It would be easy. There were multiple curses that would do it, some quicker than others, some more painful than others. It was such a temptation... but it would also be an act of war, and he was not ready to take that step yet. If I ... |
Warily, shooting his professor a look of disappointment, he passed his wand to Slughorn. Then he turned to Carrow. "All right, filth. Let’s get this over with." |
Carrow smirked and led Tom and Slughorn out of the Slytherin common room, into one of the dungeon rooms that were currently unused. He threw open the door and gestured for Tom to go in. Haughtily he stepped across the threshold, fury simmering in every cell of his body. He rather hoped that he would be able to channel ... |
Carrow closed the door behind them with a clang, leaving Slughorn on the outside. He turned to Tom with a malevolent smirk on his ugly face as he drew his wand. |
"Incidentally, whelp, I also notice that you continue to wear those robes," Carrow said. |
Tom did not respond to that. "Get to the point." |
Carrow scowled. "Very well. Here are the facts. Lord Scabior’s body was found mutilated on the outskirts of Godric’s Hollow. Lord Lucius Malfoy questioned every single witch and wizard in the village under truth potion, but none of them had anything to do with the killing or even knew about it." He glared at Tom. "His ... |
"Malfoy is wrong," Tom said, trying hard to control his words and not utter an insult. "I had nothing to do with it. You said you were going to question me, Carrow. Get on with it, and see how wrong you are." |
Carrow flicked his wand, and sudden, intense pain shot through Tom’s body. He crumpled, almost falling to the stone floor, but managed to right himself. |
"Scabior was the one who posted the new rules in this school," Carrow snarled, advancing on Tom. "That offended you, didn’t it, whelp?" He slashed his wand again, sending a renewed surge of pain that felt to Tom like a knife plunging into his spine. |
Tom gritted his teeth and crumpled again, trying mightily to avoid giving Carrow the pleasure of seeing him cry out in pain. "It did offend me," he spat, "but I didn’t kill the bastard over it." |
Rrrrrrip! Tom gasped as the edges of his wide sleeves tore away from the rest of the robe, leaving the beautiful embroidery in a frayed pile on the floor. But he could not concentrate too long on that, for in the very next second, Carrow sent another torture curse at him, causing him to double over. He closed his eyes,... |
Yet another sharp pain hit him, this one across his face. He felt a hot trickle of fluid immediately. Several drops of blood struck the stone floor. |
"You know why my sister and I left your family?" Carrow hissed. "Your uncle was a swine and your mother was a whore! The Lestranges and Malfoys are right that your kind are uncivilized." |
Tom gazed up at Carrow, his own blood dripping from the slash across his forehead, the hot anger of hate filling him up. "Go fuck yourself, traitor." |
Another cutting curse hit him, opening gashes on his arms. His blood streamed down his skin, dripping from his fingers. Could Slughorn not hear any of this? |
"What did you do, whelp?" Carrow snarled. |
Tom wobbled to his feet and faced the wizard, loathing in his eyes. "You want to know what happened, who I think is the killer? Here’s what happened! Some vassal of Lestrange raped his daughter—and since Scabior is dead, I’ll guess he was the one. Lady Hermione learned about it and wrote to Lady Lestrange. She probably... |
"How dare you, you forked-tongued liar!" |
Tom blinked as blood continued to drip down his face. He steadied himself and then noticed something. A corked vessel protruded from the purse that Carrow had around his belt. "Is that truth serum?" he snarled. He stepped forward. "Give it to me. I’ll prove what I say." |
Carrow considered for a moment, seemingly wanting to torture Tom some more, but then he pulled the flask out of his purse. "Very well. I’ll give it to you now, and I will have proof that you are a murderer and a liar. Defaming my lord’s daughter, his lady wife, and his dead vassal—you will be in such trouble, half-bloo... |
Tom sneered and yanked it away, downing it in one gulp. He sat down on the stone floor as the effects of the potion took hold, leaving him feeling empty and emotionless. At least the pain lessened. Carrow smiled darkly and, at last, began his questioning. |
In a little bit, the smile had fled permanently from Carrow’s face. He was deeply troubled by what he was hearing. This cannot go any further, he thought, getting to his feet at last. His lordship cannot know about this. He will surely execute his wife if he learns—unless she kills him to defend herself—and either way,... |
Leaving Tom crumpled on the floor in a pool of his own blood, he went to the door, opened it, and sneered at Slughorn. "I am finished here," he said. "I’ll let you clean up." |
"Clean up?" Slughorn said sharply. "What did you do—" He peeked in the door. "Oh, no!" He scurried into the cell-like room as Carrow made his escape. |
As Potions Master, Professor Slughorn always kept antidotes with him. Tom was immensely grateful for it. Although Carrow had not poisoned him, Slughorn also had a potion that would ease the pain of the Cruciatus Curse. He handed Tom back his wand, and together they healed the cuts on Tom’s forehead and arms, cleaned up... |
"Thank you, Professor," he said, getting to his feet. |
"Tom," Slughorn said, "I am so very sorry—I wish I could have prevented that—" |
"I do not blame you." |
The words were icy, but Slughorn assumed that it was only because of the ordeal that Tom had just suffered. He nodded. "Tom, you should return to the common room. There are no classes today, of course. You should spend some time with your lady." |
Yes, I should, Tom thought, though he was quite certain that he did not have the same thing in mind that his teacher did. None of this would have happened if Hermione had not been so reckless, and he was going to have some words with her. |
When Hermione emerged from the girls’ bedchamber in a few minutes, Tom instantly rose from his seat to approach her. |
"Tom, what’s the matter?" she asked. He looked awfully pale to her. |
He smiled, but it was not a sincere smile or a happy one. He offered her his arm. "We had better have this discussion in private." |
"Discussion? Discuss what?" she demanded. |
He lowered his voice. "Your antics had consequences," he said, his tone severe and angry. "We need to have a little talk." Without waiting for her to accept his arm, he grabbed her and ushered her out of the Slytherin common room and into another small room on the dungeon level—not the one in which he had just been tor... |
"Tom!" Hermione exclaimed when he closed the door and bolted it. "What are you doing? What happened?" |
He turned to her, his eyebrows narrowed in anger, his wand out. "What happened, you ask. Here’s what happened! Because of your letter to Bellatrix Lestrange, their vassal Scabior is dead—" |
Hermione sniffed. "I assume you’re implying that she killed him for what he did to Adelaide? He was the rapist? Why should I care, then? Good riddance." |
"I agree, but do you really imagine that she told her husband the truth?" Tom said, his eyes hard and angry. "You may be an idealist, but I hope even you aren’t that naïve." |
She glared at him for the insult. "What are you implying?" |
He pushed up the sleeve of his left arm. "Carrow, the traitor, came to this school this morning with an order from Armand Malfoy to "interrogate’ me over it! He claimed that Malfoy had decided the torture marks looked like Celtic ritual markings." He pointed at the healing wound. "He tortured me!" |
Hermione blanched. "Tom, I never meant that to happen! I just told Lady Lestrange what had happened. I would never do something on purpose to hurt you!" |
"Well, that’s what happened," Tom sneered as his sleeve covered his arm again. "If Carrow had not been ordered to also question me under truth serum, I’m sure I would have been carried off to be executed—for a murder I hadn’t committed!" He stared at her. "I know you didn’t mean it to happen, but the fact is that it wo... |
Hermione drew her wand and pointed it back at him, noting that he held his in hand. "This is not my fault," she said, "and I will not accept blame for it. The fault lies with Carrow, Armand Malfoy, and the Lestranges—and Scabior himself, of course. Not with me." |
"You shouldn’t have done it alone," he insisted. "You should have worked with me. I was tortured because of this. I could have been put to death, Hermione!" he exclaimed, noting how her eyes grew wide and fearful when he said that. "Oh, and another thing that the filth said to me was that the rapist’s body was found ou... |
She grimaced again. "I never meant for these things to happen, and I cannot believe you still think that I fancy Harry. Though at least he has been a friend to me," she added, "which is more than I can say for you the past year." |
Tom felt a white heat surge up in him. He stepped forward, closing most of the distance between Hermione and himself. His breath was heaving as he gazed into her brown eyes. "I know you haven’t touched him," he said, his voice low and dark. "You are mine, and don’t you ever forget that." He stared at her face, anger su... |
She stared back, gazing at his dark eyes. His face was equally handsome when he was angry as when he was happy—and seeing his chest heave, feeling the heat of his breath close by, brought out feelings that she had tried her best to suppress while they were estranged. I swore I wouldn’t let him touch me again until he a... |
They closed the distance at the same time, lips slamming against each other. As if moving of their own accord, Hermione’s hands found his cheeks and threaded into his black hair. He growled and wrapped his arms tightly around her back as he forced her lips open and began to plunder her mouth, trying to pour the unfulfi... |
Hermione allowed him to do this even as her thoughts warred with each other. It was just so good to share intimacy with him again, any sort of physical intimacy—even as he was so obviously claiming her, what with the way he was plundering every corner of her mouth that he could reach, his teeth nipping against her lips... |
He thinks he can do anything he wants with me, she thought. That thought brought another surge of anger to her, but it did not overpower the desire she felt. Instead, it mixed with it. Instinctively she lunged and bit his lower lip—hard. He jerked, his eyes popped open, and to her own dark satisfaction, she tasted iron... |
"You dare—" he began to say, but he seemed to change his mind. A wolfish grin spread across his face. "You are bold, Hermione." |
She stared back evenly, not taking the bait this time. "I swore that I would not let you touch me until you apologized to me for your past behavior." |
Tom felt as if she had thrown ice water over him. All thoughts of lust and desire fled his mind, and he stared at her in disbelief. "You did that to push me away?" he exclaimed. "You meant to hurt me?" |
Hermione decided not to answer that. She did not know herself exactly what she thought about what had just happened, either the kiss or her sudden urge to bite his lip. Had she wanted to hurt him, to cause him pain and draw blood, to punish him for the kiss? He hadn’t forced it... she had met him halfway.... Pushing it... |
He stared at her, feeling almost as though she had slapped him in the face—or cursed him. "So that’s it, then?" he said harshly, ice filling his marrow to replace the heat that had just been there. "You did mean to hurt me. All right. That brings me to my other point," he said. His eyebrows narrowed again. "Why were yo... |
"A true story." |
"—and even though she has bothered you for two and a half years, even though she set up a sack of pig’s blood to fall on you in your first week at Hogwarts, even though her bitch of a mother tried to murder you and my mother named the entire family enemies for harboring traitors, you still were far more willing to be k... |
He ignored her exclamation of outrage. It was a good old English word, and he was not going to be shamed for using it because robber lords might consider it vulgar. "—than me? What did I do to you that is so much worse than what she has done over the years? Is it that she’s a witch—or that she’s half-Norman too?" He di... |
Hermione gaped at Tom in astonishment and then fury. "How dare you!" Without her conscious intent, sparks fell from the tip of her wand. "How dare you! If I had seen you in the room where Carrow tortured you, I would have come to you and helped you. That’s all it was, Tom—helping someone who was suffering! I didn’t for... |
"Helping someone who was suffering’ was all it was, you say?" he mocked. "And it would have been the same for me if you had seen me this morning? That’s all I am to you now, someone that you can treat as a victim to "help’ with your superior beneficence?" He gave her a sneer of disgust. "Patronizing Norman occupiers ar... |
Hermione snarled. "If you want to know why I haven’t forgiven you yet, it’s because you obviously do not believe, even now, that you did anything wrong!" She pointed her wand threateningly at his face. "I do not grant that you "needed’ to demean me in front of your little friends, but since you think you needed to, wha... |
Tom had thought that very thing himself this morning, and if the morning had gone differently, he might have been more reasonable on the topic. But he was angry now—furious over the fact that he had been tortured by a traitor to his family, that someone had dared raise a hand to deface the craft of his ancestors that h... |
"My friends’ parents don’t know the full truth," he said, the words tumbling off his bruised lips almost without his conscious control. |
"What do you mean?" she exclaimed. |
He smirked in malicious pleasure. "On the very first day of our betrothal, my mother made a bargain with me," he said recklessly. "Do you know what it was, Hermione? Of course you don’t. It’s been a secret. My mother promised me, as a witch, that if I didn’t want to marry you when the time came, she would break it off.... |
"What?" Hermione breathed. |
"It’s true," he said cruelly. "She promised me that, and she told me that she wouldn’t even tell your parents about it." |
"You’re lying," she protested, her eyes wide with horror. "You’re lying to me." |
"I’m not." He raised his hand, holding his wand. "I swear on my magic." The tip of his wand flared bright white for a moment. |
Hermione gasped at the confirmation. "You may have said it, but you don’t mean it," she said. "It was just the first day—I remember—you can’t still mean it—" |
He smirked back wordlessly. |
That smirk sent Hermione into a storm of rage. So he thought he could mention things that had happened on the day that they had met, as if nothing since then had meant anything to him? She wasn’t fooled. He had just called her "his." She was not going to let him get to her this way, and in fact, she would be the one to... |
"You presume much," he shot back without thinking. |
Tears instantly formed in her wide eyes, but she would not let them fall. She gaped at him one last time before fleeing the room, leaving him alone to his turbulent—and regretful—thoughts. |
His High Lordship Armand Malfoy, Earl of Wiltshire and Lord of Wizards and Witches in England, Scotland, and Wales. |
Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire, England |
Your Esteemed Lordship, |
Today I received a report of a most distressing nature, which it behooves me to bring to your attention, as it concerns the treatment of pupils in my care and the implicit pacts I have with their parents to protect them while they are on castle grounds. This morning, I was prevented from upholding my part in one such c... |
Lord Amycus Carrow, claiming the authority of your lordship and that of Lord Rodolphus Lestrange, demanded entry to the castle to conduct a "questioning" of one of my scholars concerning the death of Lord Scabior. He presented no evidence that the young wizard in question, Lord Thomas Riddle, had been involved in the a... |
Master Horace Slughorn attests to the fact that the order, which bears your name, did not grant permission to torture a pupil of Hogwarts or remove him from the professors. I therefore implore you to punish Lord Carrow for exceeding the authority that your lordship’s name granted him, and I formally request pecuniary r... |
High Master Albus Dumbledore, Lord of Hogwarts |
Albus Dumbledore smiled grimly at that signature. It was a provocation to send it, but this was entirely unacceptable. He did not even particularly like Tom Riddle personally, nor his mother, but the principle of this was what mattered. These people could not get the idea that they could torture innocent Hogwarts stude... |
Elsewhere in the castle, Tom contined to fume. He could not believe Hermione! He had just been tortured, and her reaction was to proclaim that it certainly was not her fault—and then to patronize him with her reassurances that she would have "helped" him. Tom supposed, for a moment, that he had come to Hermione to plac... |
He did not want to admit it, but she had hurt him when she had compared his torture to Adelaide’s situation and said, oh-so-reassuringly, that she would have helped him too. Was that all that he was to her now? She had eagerly participated in the fiery kiss that had spontaneously happened... but then she had recoiled a... |
She spends her time with Potter’s group, who are absolutely up to something—or, at least, their families are. She plays at intrigue and creates disasters—including one, now, that could have cost me my life. Her interactions with me now consist of fighting. What if she was not lying with her parting words? She was shock... |
She’s part-Norman. She was raised in the Muggle culture. I have been very, very proud of my ancestry, wizarding and ethnic, and perhaps she has decided to take personal offense. She certainly was affronted before, when we were on good terms, over occasional statements I made, even though I never meant them to include h... |
Tom regretted how the discussion had ended. He had not actually meant what he said, and he was not sure that she did either... but those thoughts were clearly circulating in their minds or they wouldn’t have come out. Perhaps it was inevitable, if that really was how Hermione felt. What did it mean for the future? She ... |
Hermione acts like she has no interest in my political goals, but I can’t believe that her ancestry has much to do with that. She has not even expressed a preference about the Muggle pretenders, which she would if she were a Norman partisan in politics. I think that she doesn’t really believe, even now, that it is like... |
He reflected on the fact that Hermione was not a maiden anymore. That might be a problem for—suddenly Tom’s mind revolted, unable to even complete the thought. No. The idea of someone else with her was something he could not even contemplate. But what to do? He considered, for a brief moment, the arrangement that his m... |
Tom’s mood soured. This problem did not seem to have a solution—at least, not one that he could control. Best to put it out of his mind for now, then. He had additional things to worry about, like the renewed urgency of finding the Chamber of Slytherin over the next year and three months. Nobody would dare torture him ... |
Malfoy Manor, Wiltshire. |
Armand Malfoy sat on his great throneline chair, smiling serenely as Rodolphus Lestrange approached with his goblet. Two elves accompanied Lestrange, looking properly servile as they carried wine and sweetmeats to the high lord. |
Lestrange tried to avoid looking at the potion inside the dark goblet—silver, white, and mother-of-pearl shining sinisterly in the light—as he approached Malfoy. He wished he could have the confidence that his high lord did that handling this was harmless. The substance itself looked wrong, somehow. Armand Malfoy was a... |
"My lord," he said in a low voice as he reached the high seat. Armand Malfoy extended a frail hand and took the goblet. He drank deeply as the elves set down the food and wine and made themselves scarce, lingering by the doorway in case the lords needed anything. |
Malfoy finished the ghastly white potion and set down the empty goblet. He gestured for Lestrange to sit on the second chair and help himself to food and wine. Relieved, Lestrange assented. |
"I have heard the most interesting news," Malfoy stated. |
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