Chapter Sixteen

I turned the stone over in my pocket as I walked up the elm-lined carriageway, once again aware of being watched. I knew Riddle was in the manor; I could feel him, and a lot of other people too. For some reason I did not think Tom was the one observing me, and that unnerved me; I cannot say why. I found I had to resist the urge to simply turn and flee, wondering what madness had dragged me there yet again, and why it was that each time I went the stakes seemed to have been upped, and more people were at risk.

Once again the door opened before I reached it, but this time it was not an elf that opened it; this time the hooded unwelcoming glare of none other than Abraxas Malfoy faced me, and had I not been so terror stricken, I might have wondered just why he had stooped to carry out such a menial task. I wouldn't have had to wonder for long though. Tom Riddle stood in the hallway, surrounded by a group of men, most of whom I recognised as being his closest confidants. That made me feel vulnerable, even more so when I felt the palpable hostility from most of them. I wondered from what that stemmed, just why they should be so resentful towards one man so many years their junior. It didn't take long to find out.

Riddle stepped forward as the rest of his admirers parted to let him through. 'Severus ... my Severus,' he said, laying a hand on each of my shoulders. 'We have just been discussing you.' He leant in for what was becoming his customary kiss, and it was all I could do not to freeze, as the glances from the other men in the hall changed from hostility to disgust, or dangerous envy, and Abraxas's changed to fury.

'Tom, is this visit not slightly untimely?' Orion Black asked. 'We have much to discuss that is none of .... Mr Snape's concern.' I saw him glance to Abraxas, and saw that even within his elite there was dissention, and a pecking order, and I wondered if Riddle knew how dangerous that nest of vipers was. And yet he was the master snake charmer, and I suspected one of his games would be to keep them at one another's throats, so that they hated one another enough not to ever consider joining forces in any way against him.

Riddle turned to Black, his arm across my shoulders. 'What is my concern, is Severus's concern, Orion,' he said. 'Do let me know if you have a problem with understanding that,' he said, sweeping the rest of the men with a cool glare, one that fastened on Abraxas for a moment longer than the others, whilst I felt that I could have well done without increasing the number of my enemies.

'I apologise, gentlemen,' I said, making a futile attempt at a damage limitation exercise. 'I had not intended to intrude.' I saw no thawing of the stony, impassive faces that failed to mask their true emotions, and turned to Riddle, paradoxically my only ally. 'I should call another time, Tom. I confess it did not occur to me to send you an owl to request an audience,' I added as meekly as I could.

'An audience? ... With me?' Riddle swept my remarks aside. 'You do not need to give me advance warning of your arrival, Severus. There is no inconvenience between us.'

He was digging me a deeper hole, and I wasn't entirely sure that wasn't his intention. 'Nevertheless,' I said, trying to extricate myself from the situation. 'I shall come back another time. Perhaps tomorrow, if I may?' I ventured.

But Riddle waved my attempt away, his other arm still across my shoulders. 'We are finished for today, gentlemen,' he said, addressing them all, and then turning to Malfoy. 'Abraxas, perhaps you would be so kind as to send an elf with refreshments for myself and Severus ... we shall be in the library.'

I kept my eyes averted from everyone, and I was just about to be swept up the grand staircase when a man, even younger than me, turned from the body of men who had been surrounding Riddle when I first arrived, and I felt a jolt of shock. It was Barty Crouch. I didn't have to wonder what, apart from his inside knowledge of his father's goings on at the Ministry, afforded him his status in this particular elite circle of men.

****

'Well, my love?' Riddle asked, as he sat in the seat he always occupied at the fire. 'What have you come to tell me today? Not that I need a reason for your visit.'

'A few things, Tom,' I replied. 'One which may surprise you, I suspect, as much as it did me.' I let a cynical smile touch my lips, and drew a vial of brown liquid from the folds of my cloak, thanking Merlin that I always carried it with me; it was, after all, the crux of the excuse I had cobbled together for being there.

'Veritaserum?' he queried. 'And on whom did you inflict that?' he asked, laughing like a child who had just been presented with a new toy.

'Sirius Black,' I replied, enjoying my moment.

'Black?' he repeated, and all semblance of amusement dropped from him. 'And perhaps you can explain to me, Severus, just how you came across Sirius Black ... and where he is now.' He held up his hand to let me know he had not finished, and I saw the knot of fury that was never far from the surface; I saw it tighten his jaw and furrow his smooth brow, and I saw the effort it took him to swallow it, and how it ruled him, and I knew I was going to have to make this very good indeed. 'That is after you tell me, Severus, just why you have not brought him with you,' he finished quietly.

I let the silence draw out as much as I dared. 'I have him at Spinner's End,' I said. 'I ... I thought it unwise to attempt to Apparate him here,' I went on. 'As you know I have no Apparition point at Spinner's End, and I thought it unwise to walk to the warehouse with a man whom you consider to be so wanted a prisoner ... not past Rodolphus Lestrange,' I said, and felt him push softly at my mind, to try to sort the lies from the half-truths. 'I had no way of knowing if you had a "kill on sight" order out on Black.'

He let me draw to my shaky close without saying anything, and it was only when I felt him draw away from my mind that he seemed to have come to any decision. He was about to speak when there was respectful tap on the door, and it was pushed open by an elf bearing a tray of tea.

All the time the elf fussed I felt the anger building up inside Riddle, and wondered if I were even going to get the chance to put across the elaborate story I had prepared, until he eventually stood and kicked the tray from the table on which it rested, and then kicked the elf against the wall, where it sat, its hands over its ears, howling its misery. As far as I was concerned, it opened the pressure valve on Riddle's fury, and I was glad of that much; anyway, the elf should have got a ruddy move on.

'Really, Tom,' I said, in a moment of recklessness that sprang on me from nowhere. 'Should you treat Abraxas's little spy in such a way?'

He spun on me so quickly that I thought I had made a bad mistake, and then he threw back his head and laughed, as the elf took the opportunity to slip out of the door, casting a quick cleaning spell over its shoulder.

'I am surrounded by fools and miscreants and self-seeking madmen, Severus,' he said. 'Yet you are the only one who does not fear me,' he said, coming so close to me that I could feel his light breath on my face, smell the peculiar nuance of nutmeg that seemed to follow him. 'Now, why I wonder, is that?' He drew one of his long white fingers down my cheek in a gesture that, for all its outward innocence, felt as corrupt as something evil that had crept out of an unhallowed grave. 'You may tell me that after you explain to me just why you have not killed Sirius Black.'

'Killed him?' I echoed. 'I have never killed any man, Tom, nor do I intend to ever do so.'

'I think we may need to have a little chat about those boundaries I expect you to push for me, Severus,' he replied. 'But for now, you have had quite long enough to gauge my mood and formulate your little story,' he said. 'You may sit down and entertain me about Sirius Black. Firstly, how did you find him?'

'I didn't,' I replied, sitting down opposite him, on the two-seater chesterfield at the other side of the fire. 'Lucius brought him to me.'

'Lucius?' he exclaimed. 'My, my, Severus, you have been busy. Perhaps you can now explain to me just how Lucius and Black slipped past the guard that you seemed to think you couldn't get Black past, to bring him here?'

'Look, Tom,' I replied. 'I suppose I could have cast a Concealment Charm of some sort on Black, and got him to the Apparition point ... but I didn't really see the necessity to do so,' I said. 'And he wanted me to speak to you first ... before he came here of his own volition.'

'Since when did Sirius Black's wishes supersede mine?' he asked in that dangerously reasonable tone, the one that warned me I had spun him out as far as I dared, perhaps too far. He stood up, the two telltale spots of fury pinpointed on his white cheeks. 'Nobody's wishes supersede mine, Severus,' he said, bending over me to draw his finger down my cheek again, in a way that terrified me. 'Not even yours.'

'You misunderstand all of this, Tom,' I said in a hurry. 'I have not come to here to defend my actions. I came here to deliver you a prize from Lucius, a prize I had thought worthy of even you.'

'What prize?' he said, through teeth gritted much that way Lucius gritted his.

'Sirius Black,' I said. 'He wants to become a Death Eater.'

'Out of the question,' he retorted. 'Laying aside the fact that he was lying through his teeth to you, I have many other reasons to only want one thing from Black, which is his death.' He paused to give me a hurt look. 'You know, I'm not disappointed in Lucius ... I would expect no more from him than to be so easily fooled,' he said. 'But I am disappointed in you, Severus.'

I held up the bottle of Veritaserum again, and let my lip twitch in as near to a smile as I could muster. 'Just what kind of idiot do you take me for?' I asked. 'It is I who am disappointed in you, Tom.' I knew I was pushing my luck, but I had to move this along to where I wanted it.

We had reached a kind of impasse: I knew it would be dangerous to continue, and I could see he did not care to back down in any way, but wanted to know the rest. As luck would have it, Abraxas chose that moment to come to the door, probably having been enlightened by his elf that Riddle and I were arguing, and wanting to see if he could make any capital out of the situation for himself.

'Tom,' he said grandly, as he swung the door open after just one little knock, probably not wanting to risk being refused entry. 'Was there a problem with tea my elf brought?' he asked, giving me a glance that spoke of a passionate wish that I had fallen from grace. 'It informed me that you were displeased.'

'The elf spent so long eavesdropping for you, Abraxas, that it quite forgot why it was here,' Riddle replied. 'And by the time it did, the tea was cold.' He looked across to where I sat, and favoured me with a smile I didn't like the look of. 'Now, Severus and I still have a great deal to discuss, so if you would be so kind as to leave us ...' He trailed off suggestively, watching Malfoy stifle his indignation and close the door.

When the door closed Riddle turned to me again, and I could see how timely Abraxas's intrusion had been, how it had robbed the sting from Riddle, how he could back down now without seeming to. 'Tell your story, Severus,' he said. 'It will have to be very good to convince me of Sirius Black though ... and we haven't even got to his liaisons with Lupin.'

'He and that pauper are just old school friends, Tom,' I remarked offhandedly. 'However, I find I am being constantly brought to book by you, and as such it is difficult to put my point across ... if I have to measure every word.'

He examined his fingernails and, seeming to find them satisfactory, looked across at me again. 'You are not like other men, my Severus,' he said. 'Neither of us is. I shall not interrupt you, my love,' he said, letting what I suspected he thought would show as vulnerability slip through, but what I recognised as cunning.

To be fair, he didn't interrupt as I told him that Lucius had arrived that morning with Sirius Black. I told him that Black had been in hiding since he had freed himself, and how he had done that by using the wand he had stolen from Bellatrix at school. I told Riddle that Sirius had always carried it concealed on him, like a trophy to mark his disdain for the rest of the Blacks, whom he held in such low regard. I told him that none of them, to Sirius's way of thinking, whatever platitudes sprang from their sycophantic mouths, could ever have the depth of loathing he held for, not only the way the wizarding world saw fit to dilute its blood to what he saw as its extinction, but the very Blacks themselves.

That even got Bellatrix off whatever hook she may still have been hanging from, but it was an embellishment I came to regret deeply as the years passed. At the time Riddle seemed more interested in just who had searched Black and Lupin for weapons when they had been brought to the manor though, and I just hoped it hadn't been Lucius. But just then I felt a flood of trepidation run through me; Riddle had missed the one glaring mistake in my story, the one I had missed myself. If Sirius Black had used Bellatrix's wand, how then had it been that the last spell the wand admitted to had been Bellatrix's schoolgirl hex on Rodolphus? But I couldn't afford to distract myself by thinking up an answer to that; it was enough that I knew of the mistake, I would deal with it later if I had to.

He had moved on to questioning me as to why Lucius had brought Black to Spinner's End, and I told him of Lucius's dislike of Abraxas, and even how that stemmed from the imprisonment and ultimate destruction of his own twin sister ... cheap ammunition I know, unworthy of me to use a poor soul in that way, but if Riddle ever saw fit to probe Abraxas, at least perhaps her demise would not have been in vain.

Riddle tutted. 'Lucius was ever too soft, Severus. You will need to keep your eye on that one. He is too easily swayed, too damned honourable by half, although he seeks to hide it behind his mask of Malfoy arrogance.

I concurred, letting him lead me where I wanted to go. I was nearing the end now, just telling him how I had used the Veritaserum on not only Black, but Lucius too, and had found Malfoy anxious to prove himself worthy of what he saw as his rightful position, usurping the aged Abraxas to take his place at Riddle's right hand. I even told him how I found Lucius to be resentful of me, and saw me as some kind of threat to his own plans, just making it devious and yet grandiose enough to have come from Lucius himself. I had almost finished, just come to the bit I had to slip in.

'There is something else, Tom,' I said, with what I hoped he would take as quiet regret. 'Something I suspect will not please you.'

He looked at me, his gaze somehow impassive, and yet I saw his internal struggle: the struggle of one who knows he is omnipotent, and yet doubts that others have the vision he has to understand that. And it came to me then what it was all about: the desire of one man to be admired above all others, and by all others ... forever.

'Go on, Severus,' he said. 'You have got this far.'

'Andromeda Black is indeed with child, Tom,' I said. 'But the baby she carries is a girl.' I had to press on, and not let myself dwell on something that should not have been important to me. 'I know that's disappointing, Tom ... but I am not ready anyway,' I said, stammering out what I hoped he would take as lame excuses. 'I have done no work ... I am unsure of how long this will take me ... or even were to start.'

He held up his hand. 'Hush, my love,' he said, sending a chill of apprehension through me. 'I shall not pressure you. I had only hoped that it was sign.' He brought Mordestone from his pocket, and I saw it throb in recognition of him first, and then it was almost as though the stone turned in his hand to acknowledge me too, just as the flames in the fire dipped for a moment in their own salute.

Riddle slipped Mordestone back into his pocket, and stood and crossed in front of the fire to me, and bent as though to bestow the kiss I dreaded. Before I knew what he was doing he had dipped his hand into my pocket and withdrawn, not the white stone as I feared, but the vial of Veritaserum. His wand had appeared in his hand and he held it against my throat, tugging my head back by my hair with the same hand that held the wand.

'Now, I think I shall have the truth of this matter, Severus,' he said, flipping the glass stopper of the little bottle open with the thumb of the hand that held it, and raising it to his nose to smell the telltale whiff of almonds. 'Not even you can cobble up an antidote for this.'

That much was true; there was no antidote for Veritaserum, and I had always supposed there was no real point in anyone wasting time brewing such a thing, when the serum would be used under duress, and the victim would hardly have the opportunity to get to the antidote before spilling his darkest secrets.

I swallowed the Veritaserum, pretending to gag on it, as Riddle swallowed my plan ... hook, line and sinker. My hand clasped around the stone in my pocket, and I prayed that the buffer of my faith in the white stone, and the dose of asphodel and henbane I took every day of my life, so deadly and yet so addictive that I could never forget to take it, would see me through.

I felt the familiar, hot uncomfortable rush I had felt when I had been experimenting with the potion some time back, just after I had finished my renovations on Spinner's End. Then, of course, it had been Ethel asking me questions after I had taken Veritaserum, and it had worked quite well. But this time it was Tom Riddle, and the questions came one on top of the other, always loaded with live ammunition, and I felt myself struggling to even give my mumbled answers, panicking that I would not have the strength to endure this, as words I did not recognise tumbled from my mouth. It is a curious effect of Veritaserum, that the victim replies with his own thoughts, but in the speech pattern of the interrogator; both Ethel and I had noticed that, and perhaps it was that alone that satisfied Riddle of the truth of my lies.

I fell back exhausted, nauseated, as the last of the Veritaserum wove through my veins. I think I actually blacked out, because I found that when I regained my senses Riddle was sitting in the corner of my settee, with his arms around me, stroking the hair away from my face, like a lover who has gone one step too far, and is anxious to make some sort of amends.

'I doubted you, my own love,' he said, his voice laced with what might even have been genuine contrition. 'I doubted the only man worthy of me.'

I said nothing; I had done what I set out to do, and now I had to get away, and I had not given any thought at all as to how I was going to do that.

'I have an idea, my Severus,' he said, pulling me close and kissing the top of my head. 'Perhaps it would be a good idea to get Sirius to watch over the rest of the Blacks. That would kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, in that it would get them off my back, and would let me assess his worth, before I take him into any confidence.'

'I had thought that was Lucius's job,' I murmured, trying to pull away from the hellish embrace without seeming to.

'He is not up to it,' Riddle said. 'Granted, he has found Sirius ... but I have doubts about Lucius. I find him in some ways more shallow than I had hoped, but in other ways much deeper. I am sorry, my love, but I shall have to insist that you keep him at Spinner's End until we marry him off to Narcissa Black ... thereafter, Sirius can watch him.' I felt him nod his head in satisfaction. 'Yes, I think that would do.'

I feigned disappointment. 'I have work to do, Tom. I cannot have Lucius under my feet,' I said. 'He should not know of our plans with Aqua Vitae. That apart, he is impossibly demanding ... He even asked me to pillage his wardrobe for him.'

'Ah, you will just have to be very secretive then, because I am afraid it will not only be Lucius who is under your feet, my love, but Black too,' he said, holding me at arm's length. 'But do not worry, my Severus, when we want to be alone together, we can be so here.'

I felt my heart turn over in panic. It had all gone so well, and I supposed it was only to be expected that the bill was more than I wanted to pay. But I had brought myself to this pass, and I could see no way out of it, not when I recognised the hungry glint in his eyes: for once the lust was not only for power.

*****

I had thought I could bear it, see it as just his act of dominance over me, and perhaps if it had been just that, I might have. But this was something far more frightening, something he had hinted at, yet I had not fully understood. Tom Riddle saw me as not only his lover, something to do with as he pleased, but he also thought he was in love with me, and the very madness of the implications of that terrified me beyond thought. Maybe it sustained me too, and maybe in some way it worked for me, because I understood something else, as I recognised the rage that built up in my defiled body as something I had never really experienced before. Much as I had detested my father; and loathed James Potter, and Peter Pettigrew, and even until recently, Sirius Black; and despite whatever abhorrence I had felt for anyone whom I had thought had wronged me; I had never tasted what I tasted then. I had feared Riddle up until then, but now I was armed with something much stronger: it was undiluted hate. Such an ugly misused word, but such a powerful weapon.

I knew I would not get away from the manor that night. I had barely the strength to stay conscious through some of his assaults, and yet I could not afford to let the darkness I longed for creep over me; I had no way of knowing how my defences would slip if I were not alert enough to keep them un-breached. It was very late when he eventually left me, and I wondered if the rest of those in the house had left earlier, or if even then they laughed at me as an after dinner joke, and silently thanked whomsoever they thanked in their hour of need, that they were not chosen to lie with him.

I had crawled out of the vast canopied bed once I was sure he had left, and took the stone from my pocket, squeezing it in my hand as though I could extract some elixir from its core. As I turned the stone over in my hand the moonlight caught the Dark Mark on my arm, and I don't think I imagined that it somehow grinned in triumph. I thrust my arm behind my back in a useless effort to hide it away, and staggered back to the bed, my breath coming in huge tearing gulps. I lay back, clutching the white stone and wincing in pain as I tried to find a part of me to lie on that was less bruised than the rest, and perhaps the stone did help, because I found the darkness I had denied myself creep from the corners of my mind to drag me away to somewhere better.

I don't know how much later it was, perhaps three hours or more, judging from the way the waning gibbous of the moon had moved across the sky, that something woke me. At first I thought it was him, and curled myself into a foetal position in some sort of primal defence. I slowly forced myself to relax again, as I sent my mind out to search for him, understanding then that, not only was it not Riddle's presence that had woken me, but that he had left the manor altogether. I wondered, in a moment of panic, whether he had gone to Spinner's End, and if he had, what damage I had done to the two men who still did not know the lies I had woven about them. I needn't have worried though. Something denser than the darkness around me stood at the side of the bed, something watching me, and I almost wept in relief as I heard the soft swish of Sirius Black changing from his Animagus form.

'Fuck sake,' he muttered, then turned to the door. 'Malfoy, hurry, we need to get him out of here.'

Lucius slipped in the door, his blond hair gleaming in the moonlit darkness. 'The house is empty,' he said, and then I heard him stifle a gasp. 'Is this how you intend to deal with him, Severus? To stay in his favour?' he asked, but it was anguish I heard in his voice, not reproach. 'By prostituting yourself to him?'

'Enough, Lucius,' Black snapped. 'That can wait. Let's move now before anyone comes back. Are the elves still undisturbed?' He was wrapping his cloak about me, and I couldn't even stifle my winces as the soft wool rubbed on my raw skin.

'Yes,' Lucius replied. 'It will just look as though Severus has left of his own accord,' he said, stooping to pick up my jacket from where I had dropped in on the floor once I had the stone. Then he bent down to me. 'Is there anything you need from here?' he asked, and there was something I didn't recognise in his cultured affected drawl, the one that had always set my teeth on edge; it was something like care.

I shook my head. I had the white stone still clutched in my palm, and Lucius had already gathered the rest of the clothes that lay scattered where Riddle had thrown them. There was nothing I needed from this place, just the hate; I would take that with me, and make it serve me the way he had made me serve him.

We were just ready to leave, Lucius had just charmed my clothes and his own bundle of personal belongings, which for once I didn't begrudge him, when I saw him stiffen and nod to Black. Lucius cast an Invisibility Spell over me and himself, as Black changed form and padded silently out into the corridor in the upper hallway of the manor, one floor above the minstrels' gallery. It was only seconds later that we heard the sound of drunken laughter, and feet tramping up the stairs. The door to the room we were in was thrown open, and Abraxas, Orion and two other men spilled into the room, and I saw Black slip to the door in his other form and cast a hasty charm to conceal himself.

'Lumos,' Orion muttered, and the room was filled with ghostly wand light.

'Ah, it seems that Riddle's little bird has flown his nest, gentlemen,' Abraxas said ruefully. 'Never mind, there will be many nights of sport with him, I suspect, before Tom tires of him and throws him over for another.'

'Like he did your own boy?' Orion remarked, and laughed an ugly whisky-sodden laugh. 'I confess I was disappointed when your son fell out of his favour, Abraxas. There was so much of him to enjoy.'

'Perhaps it is just as well,' one of the other men said, a man I did not know. 'He may not have been so easy to keep quiet as your Lucius, eh, Abraxas?' he said. 'I mean, it wouldn't have done for him to go squealing to Riddle about abuse, just because you couldn't hold the threat of disinheritance over him.'

'Do you think me incapable of silencing one scheming little half-blooded pauper?' Abraxas retorted back with a drunken snort. 'Come, gentlemen,' he said, 'the wenches await us. Put your bloodlust away for the night, and let us concentrate on lust of another sort.'

I swore then that I would take Abraxas Malfoy at a time of my choosing, adding him to my list, just below Tom Riddle. I had two men to truly hate now, and already I was getting used to the feeling. I looked up at Lucius, where he stood with his fists clenched under his charm, and felt the pity I held for him at that moment coalesce into puzzlement. I wondered why Lucius had feigned ignorance of Riddle's homosexuality, if he had been used by him the way I had been, and how many other secrets he still had.

*****