Chapter Thirty-Five

Author's notes.

Please heed the individual warning in this chapter of suggested male/male sexual abuse.

I only noticed that Riddle had ceased his physical attempts to have me do his bidding, when he resumed them. I had let my guard down, I know that now, to the extent that not only were Black and Lucius away from the manor, but the ladies were all in Brighton. They had gone to see Andromeda's new baby girl, and no doubt enthuse over the fact that the child had blue hair, as though that little tuft, of what to me looked like the tail feathers of some exotic bird spelled onto her head, were some kind of magnet. She had brought the child to the manor only the week before, seemingly content then that Riddle had no further interest in the baby, and appeared to be keeping to his word. Of course, I knew that was only because I had convinced him of what he really knew himself: a female child was not what he sought. However emancipated the wizarding world might have thought itself to be, it still underestimated the power of women, something, with the exception of Ethel, that I did too, although I didn't find that out for quite some time.

Narcissa was by then noticeably pregnant, and I could see that Lucius's interest in her seemed to be flagging at last. He disappointed me a little, becoming every bit as flagrant in his womanising as he ever had been, and I didn't notice what other things that hid, so wrapped up was I in working out a way of stalling Riddle's conviction about a half-blooded baby, using secrets I pretended to have unlocked from the hidden text. I didn't see what was happening to Lucius, and of all the things that happened over the next months, that one remains one of my deepest regrets. He deserved more from me, from all of us.

Potter had become a regular visitor to the manor, to the extent that he was almost an inhabitant. I began to wonder if Potter were the mystery man that Sirius had alluded to that morning in the Three Broomsticks, when he had confessed that he had hopes of another love in his life. More often than not, James brought Lily, and the women all seemed to get on in the way that ladies of high station do. Their days appeared to involve a lot of visiting the sick and the elderly, and those in St Mungo's who didn't have visitors of their own, and I misjudged them, and just what they were actually doing, so badly that I even allowed them their victory over me when the time eventually came.

The day they were in Brighton, Lucius was at the Ministry, and Black and Potter were at Hogwarts, ostensibly spying for Riddle, more likely absenting themselves from what had admittedly been my short temper at the constant interruptions I had to endure. I had just raised my head from the book, the script still swimming in front of my eyes, when I felt him, not inside the manor, not just then, but on the point of being admitted. I quite forgot that I was alone but for Ethel, who couldn't possibly show herself now that Riddle believed me to have killed her, and Lucius's frightened elves. But he knew, and he had been biding his time, probably in the knowledge that his chance would come... and come it had.

'Will you have lunch?' I offered absently, still thinking about the text that I had managed to twist into something I hoped might appeal to him, still in my comfort zone of what I saw as the safety of the manor.

'Only in a manner of speaking,' he said, pulling up a chair and sitting uncomfortably close to me, in a way that made me understand at last that I had cut myself off. I had done it again; only that time I didn't even have Ethel. 'Relax, my Severus,' he said, touching my cheek, as I felt something cold writhe inside me when I realised that I couldn't even find Ethel's mind. I knew what that meant; she was in the catacombs talking to Godric, the only time she was ever closed to me. She would not even know that Riddle was in the house.

'So tense, my Severus,' Riddle purred. 'And yet we are alone, so there is no need for caution.'

'Lucius will be home shortly, Tom,' I said, grasping at anything I could find. 'And I have work to do for you.'

He shook his head. 'No, Severus,' he replied. 'Lucius has a busy day... by his limited standards, at least. I have seen to it. And Black is not here either, is he? No, of course he isn't,' he said, and ran his tongue across his top lip in a way that made me shudder in loathing. 'Both he and Potter are doing a little job for me at Hogwarts. Even the ladies are elsewhere.'

I didn't have time to wonder at his knowledge of the comings and goings of the entire household; he had grabbed my upper arms, the way one might grab a recalcitrant child to hold its attention. 'We are alone, Severus. I shall not be denied.'

'You have it all planned, don't you?' I whispered. I knew then that even once Ethel found out Riddle was there, that she could not send for Black and Lucius the way she had done the last time, that they could not appear back at the manor for no good reason. I had broken my own cardinal rule, and I had no one to blame but myself. I had nowhere to turn either, and I took, Merlin help me, the path of least resistance. He would not kill me; I knew that, not when he needed me as much as he believed he did. I would hang onto that.

"I'm here, dear. The elves have informed us that he is here," Ethel said, slipping into my mind. "But I cannot leave the catacombs, Severus dear," she said, pouring her message into my mind. "We cannot allow the link between him and Salazar to become any stronger than it is." Even in the split second of her outpouring I could feel her hesitation, and braced myself for what was to come. "Do not allow him to use Mordestone, Severus... the stone is his link to Salazar, and if he should fully understand that... dear... Severus dear... you must succumb to him."

"I can't," I said, even as I doubled over in agony from his first curse, yet I knew that what he dealt out, he thought he gave in love, and I knew too that it was when the Dark Lord dealt out in anger that the real pain would begin. My last truly conscious thought, before I surrendered to the agony of his caress, was of begging Ethel not to send for Black or Lucius, that to do so would only arouse the suspicion that never lurked far from the surface of Riddle's mind, and of fumbling in my pocket for the white stone.

I endured the onslaught, lost in the miasma of pain, yet somehow shrouded and detached in a way I thought had to do either with the stone or Ethel, or maybe both of them. I had to remain conscious; I had no way of knowing if he could plunder my mind if I allowed myself to slip away, in the way he found it so easy to plunder my body.

I don't know how long it was until he finally drew back, leaving me shivering in a mixture of self-loathing, and gut-wrenching fear that, in his madness, he would not even notice if he killed me. He had pulled back before, as though to admire his handiwork, and for an awful moment I thought he was going to begin his assault again, but he had become thoughtful.

'You will let me know when Potter's wife is with child, Severus?' he asked. 'It would not do for me to have to find out from anyone else... the way I had to find out about Andromeda Black.' He spun on me, his eyes alight with accusation.

'Of course I shall,' I murmured, wiping my mouth with the heel of my hand, unsurprised to find it covered in blood.

He smiled at that, beginning to dress himself, using negligent spells to aid him in the task, until he had donned the façade of sanity along with his clothes. 'And your own wife is not to your taste, my love?' he asked, presumably taking the fact that Narcissa was carrying a child, and Lucretia was not, as some sort of indication that relations between us had soured to the extent that we did not share a marital bed. 'Of course, my Severus, how could she be?' he added, and then stiffened as the door of my room was pushed open.

'Where on earth is everyone? Severus...' Sirius's voice trailed off as I watched him close his eyes for a moment longer than a blink, only to be followed into the room by the last man on earth I wanted to find me in the condition I was in.

Riddle was already seated at the fire, nursing a glass of whisky, as though he had been there all afternoon. 'Ahh, gentlemen,' he said, addressing James more than Sirius, as if oblivious to the fact that I was trying to drag myself to my feet under the unseeing stares of his escort of Death Eaters. 'A successful afternoon's work, I hope?' He glanced to where I had pulled myself across to the wall, in some vain attempt at preserving a modesty I didn't have. 'Severus and I were just having a chat about some things.' He turned to James again. 'Your wife? She is well I take it?' he enquired, as though he weren't asking if Lily were yet carrying the child he so desperately sought.

'She's well, Tom, thank you,' Potter returned shortly, and then he surprised me, and humbled me too. He took off his cloak, and handed it down to me, hardly glancing at me. 'You must be cold, Severus,' he said, his voice totally passionless. 'And the ladies will be back soon. It would not be fitting for them to find you like this.' He shot Riddle a look, and it was one I knew stifled the hate and the outrage he was feeling. 'Would you like our report?' he asked, his voice still betraying nothing.

'Perhaps,' Riddle agreed. 'Perhaps I shall stay for dinner... then again,' he said, glancing to his four Death Eaters with something like regret, 'perhaps not.'

He snapped his fingers, and his four faithful woke up as I felt myself being clothed. I opened the eyes I didn't realise I'd closed in some sort of belated humiliation, in time to see Black drop his wand arm, as both he and Potter stood in front of me as though to shield me from view. I could feel the fury in both Sirius and Potter, that Riddle had no compunction in showing off to his followers just what he could reduce me to, like some cheap trophy, and that in his madness he would suppose me honoured and envied above his common herd.

*****

Black sat with his head in his hands at the kitchen table. We had adjourned there after Riddle left, taking his entourage with him, the four who were in the room with us, and the other five that Potter and Black had said were standing in the hallway just outside the door to my room. I knew before I asked that, whilst the four in the room had been insensible, the others would have been able to hear everything in the room, and my guts recoiled in mortification at the thought of the likes of Barty Crouch and that hellcat Bellatrix laughing at what they would recognise as my comeuppance. Ethel still hadn't come upstairs, but I had spoken to her mind to let her know that Riddle had gone, and that Sirius and Potter were back.

'Do I take it that this is a common occurrence?' Potter asked.

'It has happened before,' I snapped back, resisting the almost overwhelming urge to Obliviate the memory from him.

'This fucking day is just getting worse,' Sirius snarled, dragging his head up, and I began to realise that something apart from what had happened with Riddle was troubling him.

Black recounted that Dumbledore had told him that some rather unpleasant rumours were circulating about Lucius. At first I paid scant attention, assuming him to be filled with some belated righteous indignation about his cousin being two-timed, and it was only when Potter began to throw in his two knuts worth that I really began to listen, with slowly mounting alarm.

Two whores had been murdered in the past month in Knockturn Alley, both from the same brothel as the girls who had been at Malfoy Manor the night Abraxas was killed. A third girl had survived, and she had claimed that her client was a powerful Ministry man, although she refused to be drawn any further, probably because he had been under some sort of charm that had made his actual identification impossible.

'My father says that his contacts told him that the three times it has happened, Lucius has been absent from the Ministry,' Potter said. 'It doesn't look good for him.'

I wondered if he were just taking a swipe at Lucius, and if so what he hoped to gain from that; it certainly wouldn't be my good graces. Then I thought about how distant Lucius had become, and how I had failed to really notice that before. I set that line of thinking aside quickly; Lucius was many things, not all of which were good, but I felt quite sure he was not an abuser of women.

'And your father... and you, for that matter, think that Lucius is a murderer,' I said, my voice heated with accusation. 'And Dumbledore too,' I said, shooting that remark to Black.

'No, Severus,' Potter said calmly. 'My father... and I, for that matter, think Lucius is being framed.'

'Dumbledore does too,' Black grunted. 'That aside... this is the sort of mud that sticks, Severus. And the fact that Lucius is who he is, doesn't help matters. He is despised,' Black went on with something that sounded like regret, 'by every side. The innocent loathe him because he heads a corrupt Ministry, and the Death Eaters, the Blacks and their close circle in particular, hate him anyway.'

I felt sickened by the injustice of that; at the same time I didn't really see what we could do about it. We didn't have a chance to discuss it further anyway; both Lucius and Ethel arrived in the kitchen at the same time.

'He's been here,' I said, before either Black or Potter saw fit to give their version of events.

Lucius sat down heavily, and I took a searching look at him for the first time in too long. He looked strained and worried, and distinctly nervous. 'Am I to understand that you have once again been the subject of his abuse, Severus?' he asked.

'What does it matter?' I replied, letting my eyes slide to where Ethel had gone over to her stove, in that way she had of pretending to cook, when she was actually thinking or listening. 'I do what I have to... we all do.'

'And am I also to understand that certain rumours which are circulating the Ministry, have reached Malfoy Manor too?' he asked.

'What's this?' Ethel turned her enquiring gaze to where Lucius sat.

Lucius gave her his account of the ugly suppositions which had filtered through the Ministry, fanned in some places, and quashed in others. He sounded emotionless as he spoke, not even that; he sounded like a man no longer able to support the luxury of emotion. I felt a bitter guilt well up in me; I had not taken the time to ask him if the position he had been placed in were a price he was able to bear, let alone willing to pay.

'What are you going to do about it, Malfoy?' Potter asked. 'You can't just ignore that kind of thing. Can't you make a statement refuting the allegations? You're the fucking Minister of Magic.'

'I shall curb my excesses,' Lucius said in hard flat voice, one that made me realise for certain that he was not guilty of the charges laid at his door. He stood up and left the room.

'I wonder just who he is protecting?' I murmured after him.

'And why?' Black added.

Ethel just looked thoughtfully after him. I thought she looked tired too, and wondered at just what work she and the other shades had had to do to keep Slytherin from breaking through to Riddle. That was something else I had to worry about; I felt Riddle was formidable enough without the undoubted power of Salazar Slytherin to bolster him.

*****

The next week things took a turn for the worse. The "Midlands Cull" that Arthur had seen mention of in a secret document, became a horrible reality. Every day both the "Prophet" and the Muggle newspapers released details of what the "Prophet" described as the neutralising of those the "Ministry deemed unfit to be called the name wizard", and the Muggles put down to an unidentified rampaging psychopath. In the space of ten days twelve people were reported dead in the Muggle press; the actual number was twenty-six, the rest not being known to the Muggle authorities.

Black and Potter came to me one day towards the end of the massacre; I knew without asking them what they had decided to do. Maybe I should have stopped them; perhaps they might even have listened, but I doubt it. They took the Dark Mark that night, both of them, and within a week Potter headed one of Riddle's death squads, and Black headed another, whilst within the Ministry Lucius fought the silent thankless war he had fought since he had assumed the mantle. We had moved our pawns into place, Merlin help us.

Lily had moved to stay with James's parents, and had not been out of the house for fear of her pregnancy being recognised by some shrewd witch hostile to our cause, and I tried to play Riddle as well as I could. He was suspicious about Lily's apparent disappearance, of course; after all, he was hardly going to rely solely on the information that came from the inhabitants of Malfoy Manor, and I knew it was up to me to tease him in another direction.

I had moved him forward a little, cobbling up a story I thought he swallowed, even going as far as to begin brewing a potion which I told him would take fifteen years to mature, and that I would not need a host body until then. In my naivety I thought he believed that, but that's not really an adequate excuse; the real truth is that in my vanity I thought myself smarter than he was. Such a basic error: the underestimating of one's adversary, the overestimation of oneself.

Things quietened down a little, and I fancy that was only because fingers were beginning to point to Riddle as Lucius's ultimate master, and he did not care to bear the brunt of any hostility, not when he had gone to such pains to put Lucius in the Ministry to do that for him.

I went into the kitchen one evening to find Lucius sitting alone at the table, with just Ethel standing at her stove. The silence made me think I had interrupted them, something I was vaguely regretful about.

Potter had arrived, as had become his habit, and when Sirius came in a few minutes later, he was grey-faced with what I mistook for fatigue. It was only when he began to speak that I understood what was wrong. He gave Lucius an almost furtive look, before looking to me in some sort of appeal, as though I could say the words he couldn't find for himself. I looked behind him to where Ethel had moved from her stove, as though summoned by trouble, in that way that she always seemed to rise to the occasion.

'Now, sit down, dear,' she said to Black, taking his arm, and leading him the rest of the way to the table like a child, and I wondered with a twinge of envy if she were speaking to him on some other level too, like the way she often spoke to me.

'I don't know to say this, Lucius,' he began, and faltered, taking the time to stick a cigarette that he forgot to light, at the corner of his mouth. 'I don't know how to ask you to forgive me.'

'Really, Black, your good opinion has never really mattered that much to me,' Lucius replied. 'However, if it makes you feel better, I forgive you for ever having doubted me.' He turned to me. 'You too, Severus. Don't think I haven't felt you drawing away from me. I am becoming somewhat immune to hate now, though,' he said, in a way that made me understand just how badly the waves of hostility, that were sent his way from so many quarters, were affecting him, and made me understand that that was what he had been talking to Ethel about.

Black broke into my thoughts though. 'I didn't doubt you,' he said. 'That was why I went with Lupin to stake out the whorehouse this last few days... now that other things have quietened down. It's amazing just how much a wolf and a dog can smell when they try,' he added bitterly.

I frowned over at Black, just beginning to understand the depth of his inner turmoil, but Lucius had raised his hand, as though to stave Black off.

'Black, I know,' he said quietly. 'I just didn't want you to.'

Sirius stood up, toppling his chair. He crossed to where Lucius stood at the door, and grabbed a fistful of his velvet robes. 'Of all the fucking insane stupid...' He trailed off. 'How could you do that? How could you let that accusation be levelled at you?'

'What exactly is going on?' Potter asked. 'What did you find out?'

'I found out just who has been murdering whores,' Black said, spitting the words out at Lucius, as though he were accusing him freshly.

'And?' Potter put in, still clearly in the dark.

'Black, no,' Lucius snapped. 'It doesn't matter.'

'It does to me,' Sirius snarled back. 'And believe me, Lucius, I shall kill my father one day for what he has done... not only to those girls, but for what he has tried to do to you.'

'Orion?' James breathed in shock. 'Are you sure, Sirius?'

'Don't you fucking think I can smell my own bastard of a father?' Black bellowed like a bull in agony.

'Don't do anything stupid, Black,' Lucius hissed.

I watched Black turn to the door, to where one of Lucius's elves stood with a visitor, a man I had never cared for in one way, but had cared for one night, in quite another. Remus Lupin ignored us all, except for a nod to Black, and a muttered word to the second visitor who had shambled up to his side.

'Arthur, is this wise?' Lucius asked, clearly panicked.

We all turned to Lucius. That he would even acknowledge that he knew who Arthur Weasley was was one thing, but to greet him in the fashion he had just done was almost unfathomable.

'No one knows we are here,' Weasley replied, holding up his hand in a placating way that spoke of shared confidences between him and Lucius, as another knot of humility hit me in the pit of stomach, and I realised that perhaps I was the only one who hadn't bothered to look out for Malfoy. I'd dropped him into the deep side of the river, and hadn't even bothered to ask him if he could swim. 'But I'm afraid we bring bad tidings.' Weasley looked to James, and I knew what it was, just as he did too.

'He knows? He knows Lily is pregnant?' Potter whispered. 'How did he find out?' he breathed, glancing around all of us, and finding no one worthy of blame. 'I must move her... If he knows, he will also know where she is.' He turned to me, desperation showing in every new line on his face. 'Were did you hide Andromeda, Severus? We have to take Lily there.'

I was already shaking my head. 'Flamel's house in Brighton... but the cover is no longer there. Andromeda is openly staying there for the time being.'

Potter looked away for a moment. 'Very well,' he said at last, holding my eyes in frantic challenge. 'Can you cast a Fidelius Charm, Severus?'

I nodded slowly. Yes, Merlin forgive us our folly, I could cast a Fidelius Charm.

*****