Chapter Three

I should have taken the time to compose myself properly before meeting Riddle, I know that, perhaps even feigned illness and craved a later audience, but I wasn't thinking clearly. Lucius had stridden ahead of me across the polished floor, as the dancing couples rested during a break in the music. I was so angry, and probably shocked, that I don't know how I kept whatever outward calm I feigned, or even if I did. I was almost manic in my rage and confusion: with Andromeda, and Black, and although I did not realise it then, with myself most of all. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the bitterness would take over when the fury burnt itself out, that indignant self-pity of one who sees himself bested by a lesser man, that sour outrage. I didn't want to be there when that happened.

Riddle steepled his long fingers in front of him as I entered the library of Malfoy Manor that night, where it was set one floor above the ballroom, just off the minstrels' gallery. No strains of music or partying reached beyond the oak door once it had closed behind me, just the quiet calm of old books, and the menace of Riddle's presence, seeping into my mind and stifling all other thoughts.

'We are the same, Severus,' he said without preamble, as I crossed the room and took a seat at the other side of the fire, without waiting for an invitation to do so.

'Indeed?' I asked. 'I am not sure that I follow you.'

'And I am not sure that you follow me either,' he replied, the double-entendre quite clearly intended. 'Am I wrong in placing such faith in you?'

'Look, Tom ... I do not know why you have asked to see me, or what it is you want from me ... but I think you know that.'

His mood changed so quickly that he really did startle me. He stood and pointed at me, two red spots of fury appearing high on his pale cheeks. 'You would do well not to underestimate me, Severus ... nor to overestimate your own importance.'

'Perhaps if you were to come to the point,' I said solicitously, warning myself to be a little more cautious. It wouldn't be the first time Tom Riddle had been heard arguing with someone who didn't leave the room alive.

He breathed deeply through his nose, composing himself. 'Of course, of course,' he said. 'That was unfair of me.'

'Why am I here, Tom?' I asked, at once relieved that I had placated him and concerned that I had done so so easily. 'Why did you sit me at your right hand? I know that it was for better reason than to clip Lucius's wings. I don't take you for a man relishing so petty a victory.'

'Lucius needs to learn his place in the hierarchy, Severus,' Riddle said. He was well named; he never said anything that you didn't have to think about very carefully before committing your answer to words. 'That is something you can attend to later. But for now,' he added, sitting back down and smiling the cold smile again, 'you and I are going to chat about what we can do for one another.'

'What do you want, Tom?' I asked yet again, sensing I had something specific that he needed, something no one else could give him. It gave me a confidence I shouldn't really have had, and whilst not quite misplaced, I should perhaps have been more guarded. I knew that whatever he thought he had to offer in return would be as unwelcome as ... as knowing that Andromeda Black was about to wed the father of the child she carried.

'You and I are the same, Severus,' he said, repeating his opening gambit. 'And because of that, you are going to be my closest confidant.' He raised his hand, pre-empting my reply. 'Don't,' he said sharply, 'don't ask me again why I have asked to see you. Allow me the courtesy of finishing; then, perhaps I shall invite your questions.'

I felt rebuked and didn't care for the feeling, but I bit my tongue anyway.

'It has long been apparent to me that the Philosopher's Stone may be out of my reach,' he said, and I didn't think I liked that turn of the conversation. I had no defence prepared for an attack I didn't understand.

'How can I help you there?' I asked.

'You cannot,' he replied. 'But there is more than one path to immortality, my Severus, and you and I are amongst the few who truly know that.'

'I don't know what you mean,' I said, and I didn't.

'Don't be coy with me, Severus. And don't expect me to accept you for the fool I know you are not,' he said, his voice rising almost in accusation. 'You and I share the same type of ... heritage, the same background, and although you seem to attempt to conceal yours as conveniently as I disregard mine, we are the same.' He had stood up again and paced the floor in front of the fire, before spinning to me. 'I know what you are capable of. I know you are probably the only man alive who can make what I need. You know the conditions between us, the very similarities I speak of, make it possible.' He gave me a speculative look, and favoured me with another of his cold smiles.

My stunned brain had caught up at last. Perhaps if I hadn't still been feeling the residual hurt bewilderment I had thought stifled, quashed the moment I got into his presence, I might have seen it earlier. Either way, it didn't really matter.

'I can't do that,' I gasped. 'To prepare that would be ...'

'Illegal?' he offered with the same smile.

'Impossible,' I retorted. 'I have no idea how to go about it.'

'In that case you will learn,' Riddle said reasonably.

'There is nothing to learn from,' I objected. 'Aqua Vitae is nothing but a legend.' There was no point in pretending ignorance; I knew what he was referring to, and he knew that I knew.

'So was Rome,' he replied, as though that made any sense at all.

He had just sat back down when the library door opened and Lucius came in. I could see Riddle's unspoken fury at the interruption and decided to steal the moment for myself.

'How dare you enter a room when we are talking,' I snarled.

Malfoy was so surprised that he drew back for a moment, before realising just who was presuming to reprimand him in his own home. 'I beg your pardon,' he expostulated. 'I think you forget yourself,' he said as he strode into the room. He looked down to where Riddle was staring into the flames of the fire, as though he hadn't even come over the threshold, and I could see Lucius had become less sure of himself. If he hadn't been Lucius Malfoy, I might have felt sorry for him.

'Tom,' he said, almost tentatively. 'Would you care for me to have an elf freshen your glass?'

'No, Lucius,' Riddle replied quietly. 'I would care for you to leave the room when Severus and I are talking,' he said, 'or perhaps I shall avail myself of some of the other hospitality I have been offered elsewhere.'

Lucius drew back again, in what looked like a mixture of fear and humiliation; I knew that to be a dangerous cocktail, but savoured it nonetheless. He left the room without even giving me the look of loathing he must have been desperate to give me. That aside, I was grateful for the interruption; it had given me time to think a little, and I hated everything I thought about.

Aqua Vitae could only be brewed, if such a thing could be brewed at all, by someone of the same type of bloodlines, and using a host body of the same bloodlines, as the eventual recipient. There were, of course, no records of it ever having been made, although there was a witch in northern Italy who had died as recently a hundred years before, claiming to have been almost a thousand years old. If I recalled correctly, at that time her claim had been dismissed as unfounded, as all of her descendants had been dead for little short of a millennium, and there was no one to back up her story. Personally, I thought Riddle had a better chance of finding the Philosopher's Stone than having me successfully brew Aqua Vitae, especially when I was one of only four people alive who knew exactly where the Stone was, and the other three didn't know that I knew. I was just pondering what would be the lesser of two evils, if it came to it, when Riddle started me from my reverie and changed direction again.

'We shall talk about this again, Severus, another time,' he said, glancing to the door, as though no longer sure of being uninterrupted, and I once again thanked Lucius for his timely intrusion. 'There are two things I want from you first of all, one which I want done right now, and the other as soon as possible,' he said.

'What would that be?' I asked. If I were forward in my address it was only because I understood now just how valuable he thought me, and I had even then decided not to make pretence of bowing to him; he could deal with me with some respect, or not at all.

'I would like you to take a suitable wife,' he said. 'In fact, I should like you to take Bellatrix Black as your wife. The union would allow you to live in more fitting fashion than the way you live just now. I do not care to have you eat or starve at the whim of Abraxas Malfoy. I have already discussed this with the Blacks, and they are in agreement.'

What he said was only partly true. A niggardly endowment on my mother's side still trickled into my Gringotts vault, the result of one of my antecedents having had the audacity to marry a half crazy Malfoy niece when the family found themselves unable to foist her upon anyone more deserving. If nothing else, at least I understood now why Bellatrix had suddenly appeared on the shopping list Lucius seemed to have prepared for me.

'No, thank you,' I replied with some vehemence. 'Harpy is not my favoured species.'

Riddle raised his eyebrow, and for the first time he seemed genuinely amused, and I suspect he found that refreshing. 'You refuse me?' he asked, bringing the tips of the index fingers of his steepled hands to his lips.

'I refuse Bella,' I replied, raising my own eyebrow, in some pathetic attempt to show we were equals. 'And if you are the one offering, I refuse you. I would rather share my bed with a mountain troll than Bellatrix Black.'

He gave me a look. 'Narcissa then?' he said magnanimously, as though the cream of wizarding virgins were his to offer. 'Although I suspect Lucius would be disappointed.'

'I don't want any Black hag, thank you, Tom,' I said, surer of my ground, but not without a wince of pain at the lie, as the aching loss I thought I had suffocated, flooded back to me. 'If I marry, which I very much doubt, it will be to someone I love.'

He threw back his head and laughed. 'Oh, my Severus,' he said. 'Such principles. I wonder how you ever got picked for Slytherin. By the way,' he said, as he stood up to dismiss me, 'remember this. You can push me for as long as it amuses me to allow you to do so, but one thing I advise you never to do is to thwart me. Do we understand one another?'

I know it was foolish, but I also knew I had to set out my own stall, so to speak, and I had to get out of that room. I was no longer thinking clearly enough to be in his presence, and I knew that was because I hadn't let myself deal with the shock and pain of what had happened earlier, and now the dark images his suggestion had conjured up were chasing their way through my troubled mind too. I turned in the doorway and gave him a level look.

'I understand you, Tom,' I said. 'Do you understand me?' I didn't intend to wait for an answer.

'Oh, Severus,' he said quietly, more menace lacing that smooth voice than I had ever heard. 'There were two things. The other one will be done before you leave this room.'

He was in front of me, translocated between me and the door. I knew what the other thing was, and maybe if I had felt less wretched, if I had thought life had anything else to offer me I would not have accepted his ultimate gift. Perhaps I flatter myself, flatter myself that resistance to him didn't only hold firm when I was not in his presence, or when it didn't really matter. I held out my left arm, unsurprised to see that the sleeves of both my shirt and my tailcoat had already been turned back to expose my skin. He had a large flat shiny black stone in the palm of his hand, the surface of which seemed to writhe with a life of its own, and he pressed it to the underside of my arm. At first I felt nothing, and wonder to this day if I could have drawn away, although I doubt it, and then I felt something crawl under my skin, as though the flesh of my arm were rising to break through the skin, and something was creeping in to replace it, which in a way was exactly what happened. I became part of Mordestone that night, as it became part of me.

'It is done,' he said quietly, not failing to hide the exaltation in his voice. 'We are part of one another now, my Severus, and you are truly my Severus, as I am your Tom. Never before has Mordestone risen to give a part of herself the way she has done this night.'

I felt myself sway as I looked down and saw indeed that my Dark Mark was different to those of the other Death Eaters. The black snake undulated under my skin, through the skull's eyes and out of its mouth, much in the same way as it did on Lucius's arm, but instead of leaving empty eye sockets as the serpent completed its journey, the eyes of my skull filled with a hateful glowing red, the colour of tainted blood, the colour of death. I looked across the room to where he sat on his chair beside the fire, and wondered if he had risen from his place at all, and such was his power that I doubted then that any corner could hide me from him.

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