Chapter Twenty-Nine

Author's Note: Please heed the individual warning of violence for this chapter.

I seeped back to painful consciousness with the uneasy feeling that I had blacked out for longer than just a moment or two. Something about Riddle had changed; he was no longer demanding, in fact he was almost solicitous. I was slumped against the wall opposite the fireplace in my living room, and he sat at my desk; I could tell he had been flicking through "Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?".

He turned slowly to me when he sensed I was alert, and gave me a rueful look.

'Why didn't you tell me, Severus?' he asked, rising from his seat. 'It could have saved all this unpleasantness between us.'

'Tell you what?' I asked warily.

'That you are in love with Andromeda Black,' he replied.

It was then I felt Ethel slip into my mind, with relief, not realising how short-lived that was going to be. "I think that was the safest way to go about this, Severus," she said. "It will satisfy him as to why you have kept any knowledge of her secret, and yet enable you still to say you do not know where she is."

'I don't know what you mean,' I replied to Riddle through a nauseating miasma of pain, in what I hoped he would take as an automatic denial. I wanted to think through what Ethel had said, what had sounded like a good idea, but I needed to keep my wits on Riddle; I didn't even realise then what injuries he had inflicted on me, but I knew I didn't want to risk any more.

'Come, come, Severus, do not be coy with me,' he said. 'I have it on excellent authority now.'

'What authority? I don't understand you.'

'On the authority of the crone you took in as a retainer to allow you to inherit her brother's vast fortune, Severus,' he delivered in triumph.

I was trying desperately to keep up with Ethel's babbled confirmation that she had indeed told Riddle the story he had just presented me with, when he turned to the door.

'Bring her in,' he snapped.

Ethel was shoved in the doorway by Rodolphus Lestrange, so that she went sprawling across the floor. I tried to scramble to my feet, belatedly realising that my left ankle felt as though it were broken, and I ended up toppling ignominiously in an agonised heap at Lestrange's feet instead.

'Touch anything of mine again, Lestrange, and you will regret it,' I snarled, refusing to be cowed by the fact that he stood over me with his wand drawn as I began to drag myself towards Ethel.

Riddle laughed in delight and turned to Lestrange, with his hand outstretched, and the Death Eater backed away, his face contorted in pain.

'Now help the lady up, Rodolphus,' Riddle said, switching to his cold voice. 'And apologise to her for your treatment of her. This was not a case of finders keepers,' he said. 'Anything of Severus's must be treated in the same way as if it were something of mine.' He raised his hand again, and Lestrange gasped in fear, as Ethel once again slipped into my mind.

"Don't worry about me, Severus, I am just fine," she said. "And he didn't find me; I had to pop up under his nose for him to even notice me."

Lestrange had bent to Ethel, and was about to put a hand on her shoulder.

'I told you not to touch her, Lestrange,' I said quietly, watching him freeze in some sort of confused apprehension, as Riddle laughed in malicious glee.

I didn't want to play with Ethel's dignity though, and I edged across the floor to her, my leg dragging behind me, and agony shooting through me with every movement, until I almost reached her.

'Can you manage to get up?' I asked, ignoring our unwelcome audience.

'So kind, master,' she whined in a voice I had never heard. 'You were always such a kind master.'

'Get out, Lestrange,' Riddle snapped. 'Apologise to the lady first though,' he added.

Lestrange turned at the door, swallowing his frightened humiliation. 'I apologise, madam,' he said, inclining his head to where Ethel looked up at him, like some dull-witted simpering old hag.

'So kind, sir, she whimpered. 'Just like my master, so kind.'

Riddle watched the door close behind Lestrange, before turning to me.

'Now, Severus,' he said. 'I find, in view of what this ... this ...' He trailed off for a moment, nodding to where Ethel had turned from me to gaze up at him. 'In view of what I have learned, I find I am willing to reconsider the Andromeda Black situation ... now that I understand your unswerving loyalty to her,' he said, his face hardening in a way I didn't like at all. 'If, that is, you demonstrate your own unswerving loyalty me.'

'I don't know what you want, Tom,' I said, not needing to feign confusion.

'I want the proverbial quid for my pro quo, Severus, of course,' he said.

I didn't say anything as I tried to work through the muddle of emotions in my mind.

'Now what shall I offer you in return, my love?' he asked, as though he were considering exchanging some inanimate object for one I would value more.

'I don't understand,' I said. 'In return for what? What are you asking of me?'

'Your loyalty, Severus,' he said. 'I thought I made that clear. I want a demonstration of your loyalty, something you have managed to wriggle out of showing thus far.' He seemed to think for a moment, as though turning over different possibilities in the mind he had probably already made up. 'Lucius, perhaps? No, no, I have plans for Lucius that do not include his imminent death ... not unless he steps out of line, of course.'

I said nothing; my eyes were riveted on the tiny woman who had moved away from me to prostrate herself at Riddle's feet, mewling like a whipped pup. She turned to me, tears leaking down the wrinkled furrows of her face. "You cannot harm me, dear, trust me in that. Nothing you do to me can harm me, Severus. I am not of this world." Her words slammed into my mind, belying the quivering wreck who had started to crawl across the floor to where I dragged myself again to sit with my back against the wall, watching in horrified fascination.

'Master, master,' she blabbered, a long string of drool trailing from her mouth. 'Have I not always served you well? Did I not care for you when your heart was broken?'

Riddle was watching Ethel as well, with a smile on his face. 'What for this crone, I wonder, my Severus?' he said, glancing to where I refused to meet his eye. He tapped his index finger on his teeth, and smiled again. 'I know, my Severus, I know. A deal? If you demonstrate your love for me, I shall demonstrate my love for you ... doubly. How does that sound?'

"We may do well from this, Severus." Ethel's voice slipped into my mind, as she continued her outward begging for mercy. "Just keep remembering, dear, you will never harm me, not ever."

I shook my head; the surreal situation had my senses reeling. 'I cannot do that, Tom, I cannot.' And I could not, I had sworn to myself long before that I would never use an Unforgivable Curse unless to save a life, and even then Avada Kedavra was the exception; those words would never fall from my lips in anger. 'I cannot, Tom. I have never killed anyone, and shall not.'

'Yes, yes, so you said, Severus,' he replied, as though tiring of his own arguments. 'But as you said yourself, things change. Now kill the crone.'

'No.'

'CRUCIO.'

I barely had time to register the searing pain that shot through my already battered body than Ethel was upon me. 'Master, master,' she wailed, 'save me.' At the same time she was pouring words of solace and calm at me, telling me then was the time to succumb, before the Dark One turned his real anger to me instead of her. "You cannot harm me, Severus dear, but he can harm you beyond my help."

By the time my head cleared, Riddle was standing over me. 'A deal, Severus. Just say the word ... two words to be precise, and we have a deal,' he said. 'The crone's life ... for that of Andromeda Black and her unborn child.' He smiled in victory as I looked up at him.

"Take it, Severus," Ethel's voice snapped into my mind. "Make him swear to you, perhaps on your own life, and take it and run, dear."

'I cannot,' I said, as much to Ethel as to Riddle.

'Severus, Severus, Severus,' he said. 'I had not taken you for a fool. If you cannot demonstrate your love for me in this way, everyone loses ... even me. You die, Andromeda Black dies, and of course her child with her ... and the crone dies anyway. Sort of heads I win, tails you lose.' He dipped his hand into the long velvet jacket he wore, and drew out an ebony wand, holding it out to me. 'You cannot blame yourself for this, my Severus ... my love. You see, I have made your mind up for you. Now ... kill the crone, and do it before I withdraw my offer.'

"Now, Severus, do not push him any further," Ethel said urgently. "We have done well."

I had to pull my scattered wits together, remember that the crone prostrated on the floor, weeping and wailing like a lost child was not the reality; whatever mystery was Ethel's reality was speaking to me on another level.

'You swear to me?' I whispered to Riddle. 'You swear you will spare her and her child?'

Riddle's eyes narrowed, and for a moment I thought he had seen through Ethel's act somehow, though I couldn't think how, but something completely different had crossed his mind.

'The child Andromeda Black carries, Severus,' he said, 'is it yours?'

'No,' I said quietly, wondering if I should have said yes instead.

'True love indeed then,' he said, and something crossed his face that might have been regret. 'I swear to you on my love for you, that Andromeda Black will no longer be hunted; she may stay concealed if she feels safer doing so, but I shall call off my search for her. A girl child is not the one we seek anyway,' he added, not even noticing that he was cheapening his deal.

'Swear to me on Mordestone,' I said, as some trace of my senses returned.

'I knew you were worthy of my love, Severus,' he said, his face lighting with triumph as he dipped into his pocket.

I watched Mordestone throb in his hand, and then it was almost as though it actually spun in his palm to face me, and I felt the Dark Mark on my arm rise up, and I knew if I had looked at it then, the flesh would actually have risen too.

'I swear to you on Mordestone, as it is part of you and part of me, that I shall spare Andromeda Black and her child...' he said, '... if you kill the crone now.'

"Remember, Severus dear, I have been dead for a hundred years," Ethel said into my mind. "Do it now, dear; this is the time."

'Merlin forgive me,' I whispered, taking the ebony wand from Riddle's hand, and pointing to where Ethel had raised her head, whimpering in terror, yet with a smile on the old face I loved. 'Avada Kedavra.' The words felt dark and ugly as they fell from my lips, leaving them and the rest of me numbed in horrified self-loathing.

I watched her little body hurtle across the room in a bolt of green light, and slam against the opposite wall, broken and twisted like a discarded rag doll, as Mordestone flared a dull, but somehow all-conquering red in Riddle's palm, and the Dark Mark on my arm rose in hellish delight.

As I dropped my head in some torment I couldn't even describe to myself, I heard the ebony wand clatter to floor, rolling away from me. I sensed Riddle stoop to pick it up, instead of levitating it into his hand. The room was filled with a hideous screaming silence, like the aftershock of an outrage, and I wonder still just how many innocent wizarding homes had felt the same gut-wrenching horror as I felt then.

"I'm here, Severus dear." Ethel slipped in to caress my mind, but for once I found no peace in her words, not with that tiny corpselike figure lying broken opposite me. Even knowing she was already dead, and that the Curse had meant nothing to her, I felt as though I would never forgive myself that act of barbarity. I felt then that I had become what I had purported to Riddle to be, a Death Eater, and my shame burned inside me.

"Severus ... dear." Her thought was just an anxious whisper. "Hold on, dear. Even now Sirius is on his way, and Lucius too ... he has taken the ladies to Albus, and he is on his way too."

I couldn't respond.

I don't know how many seconds, or even hours, it was before Riddle dropped to my side; I didn't much care. I didn't even care when he put his arm across my shoulders and pulled me to him, or even when I felt his mouth at my neck in the way my very being had rebelled at it before. I felt in a way that his victory over me was even more profound than if I had actually killed a real person in anger, that he had been able to force me into turning against the thing I loved most dearly, just because of my own inadequacies. I had reached out to embrace the Darkness, and it had not found me wanting.

'I am very proud of you, my love,' he breathed into my neck, pulling me closer still. 'Do not think for a moment that I do not feel the turmoil inside you, or that it makes me love you less. In fact, your very vulnerability makes me love you more.' He pulled back a little at that, and tried to catch my eyes, but I looked steadfastly at the floor, or the wall, or anywhere that wasn't Riddle, or the desecrated little figure at the other side of the room. 'I shall never ask you to kill again, my Severus ... never. From now on, I shall do your killing for you.'

I half listened in dull shock to his plans, for Lucius and me, and to a lesser extent, Black, without commenting. I could think of nothing but what I had allowed to happen, not even that, what I had done of my own volition. I couldn't turn away from it, or blame anyone but myself. I don't know when he left, or even if he said anything else, but I don't think he did. The next thing I was really aware of was that Ethel was at my side, like a grandmother holding a shocked child, and Sirius had dropped to his haunches at the other side, and someone had fulfilled the ultimate act of mercy to me at that time, and had moved the thing from the opposite wall.

The next moment, Lucius stalked into the room, and I had never seen him look as furious as he did then. He stooped to Black, and grabbed his shirt at his neck with one hand, and swung a punch that connected with Black's jaw, with the other.

'You selfish bastard,' he snarled as Black slumped back in shock. 'You left him alone, you ... you ...' He trailed off, seemingly unable to find a description even in his enviable vocabulary.

'Leave him, Lucius,' I murmured, hardly realising they were the first words I had uttered since the two that had betrayed everything I believed in. 'It was no one's fault but mine.'

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