Chapter Thirteen

As I slipped out of the charm protecting the house, I once again cast a disguise about me. There seemed to have been a change of the guard, and this time the man standing at the intersection of the two streets made no pretence of doing anything but watching for me. He had charmed himself not only to change his appearance, but to be invisible from Muggle view too, and I wondered vaguely why Rosier had not done that, but Rosier wasn't particularly bright, so that could have explained it. The man pretended not to suspect he knew who I was, appearing, as I had done from round a corner that wasn't there, and I reversed his favour as I passed him.

'Sorry to have kept you waiting, Walden.'

'Fuck you, Snape,' he growled. 'Where are you going?'

'I doubt it is your place to ask that, Macnair,' I called over my shoulder as I turned into Cottontrader Row. 'I shall check with Tom though, and if apologies are required, be assured I shall forget to offer them.'

I didn't wait to hear his response, consisting as it would have done of the words pauper, half-blood and scum, in any order I cared to place them, but I did notice that he made no attempt to follow me; he obviously had a wider remit than just watching the comings and goings of Severus Snape.

I didn't go straight to the disused warehouse though; I walked instead along Cottontrader Row to the next street, and along it to the off-license at the very end, next to the railway embankment. I had Muggle money on me; I had always carried it since I had developed a taste for malt whisky. I bought four bottles of Glenfiddich, and charmed them when I got to the warehouse, intending to pick them up on my return.

I went to the Apparition point to the west of the manor again, as I always did. It was a longer walk to the house, but it gave me some much needed time to think, and afforded me the opportunity to try to sense Riddle's presence. Unlike the day before, I felt him quite clearly, and when I did I noticed I dropped my hand to my pocket to where the stone sat nestled in the corner, as though to glean some comfort from it, and I was sure the stone recognised him too.

I wasn't kept waiting that time; in fact I had only begun to climb the stone steps to the front door when it was thrown open by the same elf that had given me such a dubious welcome the day before.

Its words were the same; just the order of them was different. 'You are expected, sir.'

The entrance hall was empty except for the elf and me, but I could hear voices issuing from upstairs, one of which was raised in something more than anger. I recognised it immediately as Walburga Black. I followed the elf up the grand staircase, past the room where Mrs Black was still arguing, but she had lowered her admirable pitch, and I was only able to catch snatches of what she said.

'At least I have not seen fit to hide my son's treachery,' she hissed, 'unlike the way you have presented your peacock to the Dark Lord as being worthy of his service.'

And here someone I presumed to be Orion Black added, 'Quite right, dear.'

'How dare you?' Abraxas's voice, low and threatening.

I wanted to stop to hear the rest, but the elf had already opened the door of the library, further down the minstrels' gallery, and I had no good excuse to linger.

Riddle was sitting at the fire, the same way as he had been that first night, but instead of a glass of brandy at his elbow, there was a glass of dark clear tea. He didn't stand to embrace me; in fact he didn't even look round as I heard the door close softly behind me, and I felt the flood of trepidation that I had tried to keep at bay lap over my defences.

'Tom?' I said unsurely, without the need to feign the solicitude; what I had begun to recognise as an emotion bordering on sheer terror had done that for me.

He turned at last. 'Tell me, Severus,' he said, 'for how long do I need to call you before you hear my summons?' He held up his hand to stifle whatever I was going to say. 'I only ask, so that I can plan for the future,' he added in that reasonable tone of his, the one that knew no reason.

I looked down to where his Mark seemed to burn on my arm, and I wondered if he had in some way caused the sensation. 'I didn't understand what I was feeling,' I said; it was the truth after all. 'I came when I ...'

I was unable to finish. I was seized by a pain so sharp that it starred my vision, and it took me all of my strength to stay on my feet, even with the support of the wall I had fallen back on.

'Perhaps, now you will recognise it?' I heard him say through the blinding agony.

I nodded, at least I think I did, but I didn't speak, as wave of nausea swept over me. I felt something else build up inside me too, and it took me a moment to recognise it as rage; and another to understand it was directed, not so much at Riddle, as at the black stone he slipped back into his pocket; and yet another still to understand that the source of my fury was not my own heart, but the white stone in my pocket. All that sharpened my wits and told me two things: I had to be in control of myself at all times and in control of the stone too. It could be my saviour, indeed it had already proven to be so, but I knew very well that it could be my undoing too.

He had turned back to the fire, just staring into the flames, and it reminded me of the way Dumbledore had told me that Nicolas had stared into the flames of Ethel's fire, and indeed the way Ethel gazed into the fire at Spinner's End to commune with Godric, and I wondered if Riddle too had a confidant in the nether world. I certainly hoped not.

When he turned back to me his demeanour had changed; he had become Riddle again and had put the Dark Lord away. 'Come sit with me, Severus,' he said, as though I had only then just walked in. 'I would talk with you undisturbed whilst the rest of the fools here argue amongst themselves.'

I had little option but to obey. I could hardly say that I hadn't come to see him, but had come to free Sirius Black and the werewolf. The werewolf, I thought, with a sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Just a few hours before the full moon would rise, and Remus Lupin would see the defenceless man in his prison as his quarry, one who had nowhere to run, and was unlikely to have the strength to effect the change to the form that would keep him safe. Of course, that was only one possible scenario; the other was that very prison being opened by some unsuspecting person or elf, and the werewolf escaping to vent its fury elsewhere, and gratifying though the prospect might have seemed on the surface, Tom Riddle, and to a lesser extent Abraxas Malfoy, were quite difficult enough without them being werewolves too.

'How are you settling into your new role, Severus?' Riddle enquired mildly, as though I had taken up a position as an assistant in a shop.

'I find I am unsure exactly what that is,' I said, deciding to make some effort at asserting myself. 'I had been trying to make some attempt at beginning work today, and now I find I am summoned here instead.'

If he were angry, he didn't show it, in fact he smiled the smile I knew as dangerous and he probably regarded as disarming. 'And have you made any sense of anything?' he asked.

'I haven't had the chance, Tom.' I tried to relax a little, tried to think my way forward to what my real goal was. 'Was there something specific you called me for?'

'Yes, yes there was. I would like you to take on the additional role of watching someone for me,' he said. 'But before you do that, I would like to be sure that your fealty lies to me.'

'You have doubts?'

'I always have doubts, Severus,' he replied, and smiled again.

'And this person I am to be watching?' I asked. 'Would it not be more economic of your manpower to let Macnair take up that duty, instead of keeping tabs on my comings and goings?'

He threw back his head and laughed. 'Oh, my Severus,' he said, and I noticed the address with some sort of relief, the "my" had been missing, the "my" somehow told me that he held me in some sort of regard ... and to be very cautious when it was not used, and even more cautious when he did. 'Walden Macnair is not spying on you,' he said. 'He is your reluctant protector for today. No one hostile will approach you, not when I am watching out for you.'

I think I believed that, although a guard's very presence, reporting as he would to Riddle, would have the same effect as a spy's. 'I see,' I murmured. 'However, if I understood you correctly, my main aim is to find a reference to work from to somehow unlock the secrets of Aqua Vitae, if ...' I said, hesitating for a moment, to let him know of my doubts, '... if such a thing can be found. How am I supposed to take on this additional task?'

'Quite easily. You will either come to stay here, or Lucius Malfoy will go to Spinner's End.'

'Lucius?' I repeated, totally baffled as to where he was leading me. 'I had thought that Lucius was watching the Blacks for you. Are you now saying I have to watch him?' I paused again, but he seemed content to let me vent my confusion, uninterrupted. 'Anyway, you led me to believe that I had not to concern myself with Lucius, and now I find that, not only do I have to do so, but that you have thrust him right under my feet.' I finished, on what I hoped was a high.

'Things have changed,' he snapped. 'But first I need to see you are capable and loyal enough to do what I am asking.'

I had no idea of what was going on, but I knew it wasn't good. I was also desperately aware that things were escalating out of any feeble control I might have had on them, and I finally acknowledged that I had made a bad mistake in going to the manor all. Then again, it would have been a worse one to resist, and I wasn't entirely sure I could have done that. Riddle had stood up, and at the door he cocked his head in invitation for me to follow him. When we passed along the minstrels' gallery the drawing room door was open, but Sirius's parents and Abraxas were no longer there. I began to wonder if Walburga and Orion had gone there to take Sirius back to Grimmauld Place, and wondered too if Lupin had been sent along with him.

Riddle didn't stop at the ground floor, and I understood then where we were going, and the flood of unease washed through me again when I wondered what he was asking of me. He made his way through the catacombs to the bookshelves, passed through them and past the sarcophagi to the door at the end. He took the key from the hook and opened the door.

There were still two people in the windowless replica of the drawing room, but this time one of them sat in the corner. His head was bowed, and his silver-blond hair covered his face. Lucius didn't even look up. The other person sat on a red velvet chaise, with a look of serene contentment, holding a wand pointed at Malfoy, one that I suspected had just been used. It was Bellatrix Black. Neither Sirius nor Lupin was there, and I felt sure that the Blacks had taken them, and wondered just where that left me, and them.

There was one other thing worthy of note in that thinly disguised prison cell; just a few feet from where Bellatrix sat was the maple wand, right in the middle of the floor. Of course, it was visible to no one but Sirius Black and me, and I wondered if he had left it deliberately as some sort of statement, or if it had fallen from his grasp in some struggle. I didn't even know whose wand it was; I had just found it one night in the Slytherin common room when I had still been at school. Although I had not been in the habit of pilfering anyone else's property, however poor I had been, I had taken it and hidden it, quite probably out of spite against anyone so careless as to leave it lying around. No one had mentioned it was missing, and as the weeks went on I forgot about it, and by then, of course, it was too late to enquire about its owner. It was a plain wand, light and small, probably a girl's wand, adorned only by a snake winding around the handle. I had not done a Prior Incantato on it, probably in the knowledge that the wand would let the owner know by whom that had been done if I returned it, and would question why I had kept it so long, and such was my disinterest afterwards that I just hadn't bothered. I bothered then though, as I tried to work out if I could use it to my advantage.

'What's going on?' I asked Riddle, nodding to where Lucius raised his head at the sound of my voice.

'I should like you to find that out from Lucius, Severus,' Riddle replied. 'He has managed to allow two prisoners I had here to escape.' He turned to me and held my eyes, and I found I could not look away. 'I would like you to drag the truth from this fool, as to why he has let Sirius Black and Remus Lupin escape from under his nose.'

Escape. That was why the Blacks were there. I reined in my thoughts from where they threatened to leave misplaced exhilaration; I had to escape then too, and under Riddle's watchful eye that might prove difficult. Instead of better, it was getting worse; everything was falling about my ears, like a house of cards. Riddle had sat on the settee, opposite the chaise where Bellatrix sat, both content to watch me perform whatever atrocity Tom had in mind: I knew one thing though; it surely had to be kinder coming from me than from the harpy who sat watching, still silent, but barely suppressing her malicious glee.

I shook my head. 'This is not what I am about, Tom,' I said. 'I am not a violent man. Find someone else to do this, but not me,' I said, dragging the inevitable out as I tried to think of a solution, and found my eyes looking at the wand. I pushed my thoughts out gently and began to roll it slowly across the floor to under the settee on which Riddle sat, feeling I was probably wasting my time, but at least it was hidden from obvious view then, so that I could release the charm on it.

'I shall not tolerate outright defiance, Severus,' Riddle said quietly, his nostrils flared in fury. He breathed in deeply, looked to where Bellatrix had snorted her own derision, and gave her a hard look to let her know that even she was not above reprimand. Then he stood up, and laid his hand on my shoulder, and it was all I could do not to flinch under his touch.

'Now, I understand what you are saying, my Severus,' he said confidentially, as though to let me know he had forgiven me already, turning us both away from where Bellatrix sat seething in furious humiliation. 'But I need to know the deep confidence I have put in your loyalty is not misplaced. I need to know that you will go beyond your boundaries for me,' he said, and leant forward to kiss my cheeks in a way that made my flesh creep, 'as I shall for you.' He drew back, and I could see something in his eyes that frightened me; it was hunger, and a lust for power that knew no limits, and a need that he thought only I could fulfil.

'I need to know what has happened then,' I said, feeling renewed self-confidence. 'Black ... And Lupin? Is that what was in this room? Is that what made Abraxas so loath to allow me down here?'

'Yes,' Tom replied. 'And just before you arrived today, this fool informed me that when he came here the room was empty,' he said, nodding to where Lucius sat in the corner, his pale grey eyes trying to catch mine. 'Now, I do not have any Veritaserum here, Severus, although I shall have you prepare me some for future needs, so I want you to get the truth from him by other means,' he added with the cold smile. 'You may use your wand.'

I nodded to Riddle in understanding, as Lucius's thought reached my mind, "Make it good, Severus; he will know if you hold back." 'And what if I cannot?' I asked, still stalling, as I let the plan I was working out run through my mind again.

'Try harder,' Riddle snapped. 'Now get on with it.'

I raised my wand and turned slowly to where Lucius had dropped his head, as though somehow preparing himself. I let my gaze slide away from him to stop under the settee where Riddle had sat again, and frowned. Riddle looked down too, and raised his hand.

'Just a moment, Severus,' he said, bending to pick up the maple wand. 'Well, well, just what have we here?' he said, rolling the ends of the wand between the fingers of both hands. 'Neither Black nor Lupin was armed when they arrived.' He glanced in some sort of triumph to where Lucius had looked up again.

'That's not mine,' Malfoy said in a hoarse whisper. 'I swear it ... it's not mine.' He gave me a desperate look that made me wonder if the wand I had stolen so long ago were indeed his; I know I hoped it wasn't.

'We'll see,' Riddle said, handing me the wand. 'If you would, Severus.'

I held the wand in front of me and looked again at Lucius, but there was no renewed fear in him; he was either full to the brim of it, or unafraid of what was about to happen. 'Priory Incantato,' I said quietly, and felt the reverse surge in the little wand as it dived into itself, instead of out, to retrieve the last spell it had cast, some ten years before. At first nothing happened, and I began to think either it had been a new wand, although it was very unlikely that the owner had not at least tried to open a door with it, or it was too long ago. Riddle had just begun to frown, when a faint nimbus of rosy light began to pour from the end of the wand, and the image of a young Rodolphus Lestrange wavered into view. He was holding his hands in front of his balls as though to shield them, before doubling over in agony, gasping the words, "You fucking bitch, Bella." One thing was quite clear, however Black and Lupin had escaped, the wand had not been used, and that at least gave me confidence that they were, even then, safely at Hogwarts.

Lucius seemed to slump in relief, Bellatrix let out a whimper of what I recognised as disbelief, but it was Tom's reaction that worried me. He had stood up, his hands balled into fists at his sides, his face white but for two spots of colour high on his cheeks. He turned, not to Bellatrix, but to Lucius, and pointed a finger at him.

'What do you think you are going to gain by this?' he snarled, sounding more like an animal than a man, and his response made me wonder if Bellatrix and Riddle were more than favoured disciple and master, and if that were the case, why he had tried to press Bellatrix on me. 'Do you seek to make a fool of me?'

'I don't know what you mean,' Lucius retorted, and some of his spirit, his inbred arrogance seemed to have returned. 'You cannot blame me for Bellatrix's wand being here.' He let the corner of his lip curl as he nodded to where she sat bolt upright in some kind of shock. 'Why not ask the vicious little harridan herself?'

Riddle was wrong-footed, and I could see he was all the more dangerous for that. 'Believe me, Lucius,' he said, 'if I find that you have placed that wand in this room to deflect the blame from you onto someone else's shoulders, you will die.'

Malfoy remained wisely silent, and I wondered if I should venture anything, but Riddle had turned away from Lucius and looked speculatively at Bellatrix. 'Now, Bella,' he said, and I saw his game then; he had sought to lower her defences by turning on Malfoy. 'Perhaps I should, indeed, leave this to you to explain.' But he wasn't finished with his accusations, and he turned to me. 'And you, Severus? Have you had a hand in this, perhaps?' he asked. 'After all, Lucius and you were both down here only yesterday. Did you two and Bellatrix hatch a little plot to get her cousin freed? I find myself wondering just what went on before Abraxas and I arrived on the scene.'

I had peeled my thoughts of everything but finding the book to one side of my mind, and closed the rest down, just before I felt the gentle pressure of his. 'Lucius stayed at the end of the corridor, Tom. When I was here looking for the book anyway,' I said. 'I cannot vouch for him at any time I was not here.'

I thought he was reluctantly satisfied, and I rather fancied Bellatrix might have been in for a difficult time. I had more to worry about than her though; I had to get out of there and back to Spinner's End, without Lucius Malfoy for company. And yet, I was more worried for Lucius than I had been previously.

'Perhaps I may suggest you ask Abraxas who else has access to these catacombs,' I said, looking around the room. I ran my finger along the top of the fireplace and looked at the dust on its tip, rubbing it between my thumb and forefinger. 'I'm sure it wasn't furnished today just to make Lucius feel at home.'

I knew Riddle needed to back down, and he didn't know how to, or I thought that for a few seconds. 'Yes, Yes, you are right,' he admitted grandly, like one dispensing a great favour. 'You will stay here for the time being, Severus, and help me to unravel this mystery. Lucius, you will find Sirius Black and Remus Lupin and bring them back here. Try the Ancient and Most Ridiculous House of Black first; perhaps Orion and Warburga's visit was a smokescreen.' He turned at last to Bellatrix, and there was no mistaking his displeasure or his mistrust. 'And you, Bella ... you will stay right where you are for the time being.'

'That wand was stolen from me when I was at school,' she screeched, breaking her silence for the first time.

'Silencio,' Riddle said, and dropped his hand to his side. 'You will speak when I permit you to.'

Lucius had hauled himself to his feet, but I knew I couldn't let things go any further in the direction they seemed to be travelling. 'I had thought I had more important things to do, Tom,' I said. 'I cannot stay here.'

'I shall tell you what is important,' he snapped.

I was trapped. 'As you wish,' I replied, pretending to back down as I searched furiously for a solution to my dilemma.

It was Riddle himself who came to my rescue. 'You may start studying here, Severus,' he said. 'I shall be glad of your company, and I shall see no one else disturbs you. You may use the library.'

'And what am I going to study?' I asked, giving him as challenging a look as I dared.

'We shall discuss that later.' Riddle turned yet again to Lucius. 'Are you still here?' he said. 'Go now, Lucius, and do not come back here until you have all the Blacks where I want them.' He gave Bellatrix a hard look. 'And I am beginning to suspect that there may be more traitors in that house than I had realised thus far.'

'And if I cannot find them?' Malfoy asked, his own backbone stiffening even more.

'Do not come back,' Riddle replied. 'I thought I made that clear.'

If Lucius thought about asking Riddle to reconsider ordering him out of his own home, he didn't say so, and I supposed he was only too glad to have an excuse to leave at that point. Tom watched until Lucius opened the door, as though surprised to find it unlocked, and I suspected he no sooner had it closed than he ran through the cellars as fast as his legs could carry him, and I wondered with no small measure of regret when I would ever see him again.

Riddle had turned to me yet again, draping an arm across my shoulders, all but ignoring Bellatrix, who sat fuming under his Silencing Charm. 'Come, my Severus,' he said, 'let you and I retire to somewhere private and comfortable. We have much to talk about.' And I saw it again, the naked lust for power and admiration, and yet another uncomfortable thought crossed my mind.

***

He led me back to the library, to what should have been a haven of knowledge and peace, but had become to me, like the downstairs cell, just a prison with different bars. I tried to get a grip on my thoughts, and think a way out of the mess I was in, but Riddle had sat down in his favoured seat at the fire, and began to talk with the air of man comfortably sharing confidences with a trusted friend.

'We shall take care of the dissenters, my Severus,' he said, placing one of his cheroots in his mouth. 'And once we ... you ... have done that, we shall surround ourselves with the true upper echelons of wizarding society, not just sycophantic fools who tug their forelocks at us in fear instead of admiration,' he said, and I hated the "we" and the "us" he had taken to using.

'Just think, Severus,' he said, turning to me, his eyes alight with the inner madness of newly conceived insanity. 'We can truly rule the world,' he said. 'Just you and me. We can be in complete control; we can make this country's wizarding world the envy of all others ... and then ...' he went on, swept along by his own propaganda, 'then the world truly will be our oyster.'

I was almost afraid to speak, to interrupt his fantasy. 'I think you misunderstand me, Tom,' I said carefully, cautioning myself to be very guarded in how I worded what I said. 'I have no aspirations of that nature.'

He had stood up, pacing the floor in front of the fire, like a man possessed of ideas so great that he could hardly keep up with them. 'You don't need aspirations, my love,' he said, as something cold writhed inside me. 'I shall have them for you. All you need to do is to make sure that I have the longevity to allow them to come to fruition ... Forever would be good, if you can manage it.' He stopped his pacing and dipped his hand to his pocket, and pulled Mordestone from it, and as he did I felt the white stone in my pocket throb angrily, like a festering wound. 'I understand it all now, my Severus. That which had been hidden for me is now clear. When Mordestone rose to meet you, I understood. I understood I could not travel this path alone, and I understood that you were the one I would have to take with me.'

It was only then that I began to fully understand something too: Tom Riddle was mad.

I began to comprehend the contradictions by which he lived. His loathing for anything less than pure blood, and wealth, and social acceptability, and everything his new order stood for, were all the things he was not. He was what he despised, he was all things not of his own making, things thrust upon him, and one more: whilst he made a great show of abhorring what he referred to as sexual deviance, I recognised at last that, paradoxically, he was homosexual himself. I understood then that his test with Bellatrix had been only to see where my own predilections lay, a test I had failed ... had he but known it, by default.

'I need to work, Tom,' I said, desperate to be away from him, before his presence crushed the last vestiges of sense and self-belief from me, and before the white stone in my pocket decided to take matters into its own hands. 'I cannot do that here.'

'I know that, Severus,' he admitted, surprising me. He crossed to me again, pausing only to toss the cheroot into the embers, and that time when he leant in to kiss my cheeks there was no disguising the possessive nature of the act, as though he had already laid claim to me, but had only been waiting for the right time to tell me. 'But do not absent yourself from me for too long.' He drew back, and I pretended not to notice the boyish flush that had risen on his pale face, and pretended not notice the way my own heart turned over in fear and disgust and emotions I couldn't even name.

'May I leave?' I asked, my voice barely a whisper. I only hoped he would not take it for an overflowing of emotion at our parting, or perhaps at that point it was best he did.

He turned to look into the fire, and when he faced me again he seemed to have shut away his insanity, hidden it for another day. 'Yes, yes, of course you may. I know not to hinder you,' he replied. 'Get to work, Severus. All of our plans ... our very future depends on you. I shall come to see you soon,' he went on, a smile crossing his features, which whilst warmer than any I had ever seen gracing his lips, turned my blood to ice. 'And, of course, you will come to see me too.'

****

It was already early evening when I got back to the warehouse, and so exhausted was I, that all I wanted was to fall into bed and sleep. Of course, that wasn't to be. No sooner had I Disapparated, than a man, who had been sitting on an upturned box, waiting for me under an Invisibility Charm, materialised in front of me. I had been so preoccupied that I almost let out a yelp of fright.

'You got away more quickly than I hoped,' Lucius said, standing up and brushing the imaginary dust from his ample backside. 'I thought I might have to stay here, freezing my balls off for days.'

'What are you doing here?' I asked him, bereft of anything else sensible to say, yet relieved he was there for some reason.

'You have to take me in, Severus,' he said, and I thought I could hear panic in his voice. 'There's nowhere else I can go.'

'Don't be ridiculous,' I replied. 'Go to the Lestranges ... or ... or go to your fiancée ... go wherever you want, Lucius, as long as it's not Spinner's End. I have work to do.'

'I shan't be a nuisance, Severus,' he said, ignoring my suggestions of alternative accommodation as though I had not made them. 'You won't even know I am there,' he said. I was just about to refuse outright again when he added, 'I have nowhere else to go, no one else to turn to ... and I think you know that.'

I felt my shoulders sag in agreement; how could I refuse a man in need when I had, on the surface, just accepted a man like Riddle? Lucius sensed my acquiescence; of course, he was ever one to see exactly what he wanted to see.

'Now, you'll need to tell me how to get round Walden Macnair,' he said, raising his eyebrow in the insufferable way he had.

I smiled to myself though. I had charmed the back route to Spinner's End many years before, when I was still at Hogwarts in fact. Lucius was going to get wet and dirty, crawling over the railway embankment as he would have to, but if Merlin were kind, he wouldn't get knocked down by a freight train as he crossed the track. The path would lead him to the top of the back garden though, and I could meet him there. I could tell by the flare of his nostrils that he wasn't terribly impressed by the idea, but he had no other option, unless he wanted to go back to Malfoy Manor.

Macnair was still there when I went down Cottontrader Row, and apart from a hard look at one another, nothing passed between us. I went around the back to wait for Lucius, and when he eventually showed up he was as bedraggled as I had hoped he would be.

'If I thought you had another way you had hidden from me ...' he snarled as I opened the front door, and then we both stopped short.

I wasn't the only person who had brought a visitor to Spinner's End that evening. There was a man just on the point of going into the living room, and his presence, whilst benign, was every bit as threatening to me as Riddle's had been. It was Ted Tonks.

He gave me a wary look that spoke of the uncertainty of his welcome, and I could not find it within myself to disabuse him of that notion; it left me wondering if Andromeda had confided in him though, and if he were as unsure of her affections as I was. And it was just then that I realised I had left the four bottles of Glenfiddich in the ruddy warehouse, and I had a bad feeling I was going to need them.

*****