Chapter Forty-One

As Ethel closed the door, I drew a deep breath and squared my shoulders. I could feel him walking across the hallway, and I crossed to the door, determined not to tremble before him. Up until then I had thought him invincible; of course, consequently, he had been.

'Tom,' I said flatly as I threw open the door, not even glancing at the five Death Eaters he had brought with him.

If he were taken aback by my lack of greeting, he didn't show it. If he noticed the silk-trimmed black mourning robe I wore, he either didn't see fit to comment, or just didn't care. That was fine, because neither did I, not about him.

'Where is Sirius Black?' he asked, making himself comfortable.

'I do not know,' I replied. 'I doubt he will be foolish enough to come anywhere near me now.'

'And James Potter?' he asked.

'I do not know where he is either,' I replied, 'nor do I care, as long as we keep tabs on the child, if it's a boy. Quite frankly, I have enough to cope with here with two bereaved women, to wonder where anyone else is.'

'Yes, yes,' he said, 'I understand how upset the ladies will have been at Lucius's treachery. I believe Cygnus is willing to take his daughter and his grandson back under his good grace though. In a way it's a pity that the boy is pure of blood; had he not been he might have proved useful to us.'

'Narcissa and Draco Malfoy will not be going anywhere near Cygnus Black.' I refused to let myself even gasp inwardly. I had things to say, and it would not do to allow him to dictate his way of things, or become any more at home than he already was. I had to make some attempt at asserting myself, especially now he would think me to have no allies save for the women. 'I am closing up this house, Tom,' I said, before my courage failed me. 'You will have to find somewhere else to stay.'

'But surely your dear wife will want to stay on here, Severus,' he said, and I could see that was not what he had expected, and he was momentarily, perhaps not lost, but certainly wrong-footed. 'It is her family home, after all.'

'My wife will make her home where I make mine,' I said, keeping to the same cool tone, and finding it easier than I had thought it would be as the cold hate bolstered my resolve. 'Narcissa and Draco will be coming with us.'

'Not to that dingy little hovel up north, Severus?' he said, his brow creasing as he tried to work out my standpoint and what it meant to him. 'Surely not there.'

'It is my family home,' I said. 'I don't care for it here anyway, Tom,' I said, at last letting the caution I had decided upon slip into my voice. 'I have found it difficult to work here, as though there is something or someone I am on my guard against...'

'That will just have been Lucius,' he declared, cutting me off. 'But do not let that worry you, my Severus. I shall take part of the blame for foisting the fool upon you.'

I had prepared myself for that conclusion on his part. 'Not Lucius,' I said, shaking my head. 'I almost feel as though...' I trailed off, looking down at my arm to where the Dark Mark had awakened with his presence. 'It's as though I feel some sort of detachment here... as though something seeks to undermine my concentration, and place some sort of barrier between me and...' I shook my head again, as though at a loss, hoping he would make of it that being at the manor detached me from him or Mordestone; I didn't care which, as long as I had said enough to make him susceptible to what I had yet to say. 'Do you recall the twin sarcophagi in the cellars?' I asked. 'The ones that stood in front of the room where Black and Lupin were held?'

'Where are they now?' he asked, his eyes narrowing as though he were trying to work out the angles.

'I had them removed to the Crypt,' I said. 'It hasn't helped much though. I can't think properly here, Tom. I can't work,' I repeated. 'I had threads... and thoughts...'

'But you have moved forward, my love,' he said. 'The book...'

I looked across to where 'Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?' lay on my desk, and clasped my hand around the stone in my pocket.

'It speaks to me,' I said, dropping my voice to a superstitious whisper, as I began to tread the path I had decided upon, just hoping the stone and the book would agree to follow. 'It does not like it here.'

'Come, come now, Severus. It came from here, if you recall, right beside the very sarcophagi you mentioned,' he said, a smile crossing his face, as though I were a child frightened of the dark, which, of course, I was. 'Perhaps I have misjudged the effect that Lucius's treachery has had on you. I should have thought about what a blow that would be to you.'

'Yet for all the years it lay here, it showed itself only to me,' I said, pulling him back to the book.

He seemed to think about that, maybe about Abraxas's denial of any knowledge of its existence. 'Perhaps you are right,' he said eventually. 'Perhaps we should leave this place. First Abraxas, then Lucius... you are sure about Lucretia, my love?' he asked, going in a direction I had not expected. 'Perhaps you should set her aside too, and we shall go alone to Spinner's End.'

'No, Tom,' I said quickly. 'I am going to Spinner's End with the ladies... that much has been made clear to me.' I glanced again to the book, this time feeling his eyes follow my line of vision to where it lay open.

I could feel his reluctance as he crossed the room, the difficulty he had in feigning disinterest as the pages flicked one over another to come to rest. I found myself at his side as he picked up the book and scanned the message that unfolded before his eyes. He wouldn't trust it; I knew that, that he would assume it to be some sort of trick. I also knew I wasn't imagining the tightening feeling in the atmosphere of the room, and I knew it stemmed from the shield that Black and Potter were tightening around us, and though I didn't know it then, not only had they done so, but Lupin and Arthur Weasley had joined, and even Dumbledore and Minerva had come from Hogwarts to help, so dangerous was it to allow Salazar Slytherin and Mordestone to feel one another.

At last Riddle did what I expected of him and drew Mordestone from his pocket, as I felt the shield tighten even more, so that I almost felt my breath constricted, as the white stone throbbed in anger. As he laid Mordestone on the book the sconces dipped, and yet the writing on the page became clearer:

If you should hold out your hand to clasp his, do so in trust, for even if you should let his go, he will never let go of yours.

'You see, Severus?' he said, turning to me. 'You have to trust me, my love; even your book says so.' He made to pick Mordestone from the page, and drew back as though burnt, as the page seemed to change, until the background was black and the new words danced in fiery red.

Severus Snape has no doubts. The message was for Tom Marvolo Riddle. If you cannot give trust, seek none in return. That will ever be the way of things.

'What trick is this?' Riddle said, two spot of anger appearing high on his pale cheeks in what I had long ago come to recognise as a warning sign, and I wondered if I had gone too far too quickly.

I needed him to put Mordestone away though; it would not take long for him to feel the ever-tightening atmosphere, as the shield between the Stone of Death and the catacombs where Ethel and the shades were keeping tabs on Salazar Slytherin became even more constricting in a way that made me think I was running out of time.

I said nothing, just shaking my head in what I hoped he would take for confusion, as Black slipped into my mind. "Get a move on, Severus," he said, and I could hear his gasp of strain even in his thought.

'Mordestone cannot lie to us,' I ventured at last. 'She cannot lie, Tom, not to us.'

He moved to pick up the stone again and drew back once more as new words appeared before him:

I would have your Mark, Tom Marvolo Riddle, so that I know you are he, and you know me.

'What does it mean?' he asked, doubt lacing his voice, directed not at me though, but at the book, and I could see he was torn between his adoration of Mordestone, and his mistrust of the unknown powers of 'Die Letztendliche Wahrheit?'

A quill had appeared on the centre of the book, resting on the creamy-coloured silken thread that bound the old pages together, and I could see the fat blob of ink, the colour of tainted blood, at its tip. Riddle picked it up and scrawled his name across the page, smiling as though he were joining a game to keep me amused, and not as deeply intrigued as he actually seemed to be: Tom Marvolo Riddle, and the letters danced in front of our eyes to change to "I am Lord Voldemort", and back again to what he had written.

'How did you know that?' he demanded, spinning to me, and for the first time I read something in him I had never seen before, something like shock, or awe.

'Know what?' I asked, totally confused.

'Nothing, my love, nothing,' he said, lifting Mordestone from the book and slipping it into his pocket. His face was suddenly suffused with some kind of self-believing fanaticism as he leant to me. 'Whatever your desires are, my Severus, they are yours to have.' He nodded to where the nondescript little book lay closed on my desk. 'We are complete.'

It was only then that I understood that the book had rearranged his signature into the grandiose name he had picked for himself, a name he had told no one, except perhaps his beloved Mordestone. I rather suspected it would be in the public domain very soon though.

Black and Potter had let the shield down very slowly, almost seamlessly, and by the time Riddle had sat back down at the fire the atmosphere seemed quite normal, as normal as it could ever be with the Dark Lord in the room.

He didn't say much after that, but he surprised me by announcing that he would stay with Cygnus Black, and I smiled to myself at how put out not only Cygnus would be by that arrangement, but Bellatrix too. 'I am more than happy to take Narcissa and the boy, Severus, if you would like to change your mind,' he offered. 'I would think no less of you if you felt them a burden, especially the child, being Lucius's son. I would understand your reluctance to bring up a traitor's son.'

"If anyone knew about betrayal, it was Lucius." Black's bitterness spilled into my mind. "Every person he trusted stole a part of him."

I couldn't break my concentration to reply to Black, and I suspected he hadn't intended it to be for my hearing anyway. 'I promised Lucius long ago that I would care for them, if anything happened to him,' I said to Riddle instead, adding quickly, lest he get the idea that Lucius had confided anything he might view as treachery, 'as he promised me he would care for Lucretia, if anything happened to me.'

"Get rid of the scum now, Severus, before I do something," Black snarled, slipping into my mind again in a way that made me understand I had to speak to him, and soon, so that his festering outrage, no small part of which would be directed at himself, made him careless.

'Ever the honourable one, my Severus,' Riddle said, and I could see he was already shedding whatever awe he had held. 'Oh, by the way, Severus, if James Potter or Sirius Black gets in touch with you, I should like to know.' He had flung the door open to his guard of Death Eaters, all of whom I only noticed then had not been put to sleep as was his normal custom. 'In fact, I should like Lily Potter delivered to me at Cygnus Black's house, and she can live under my protection until her son is born... or perhaps at Orion Black's... that way the Blacks can return the compliment the Potters paid them when Sirius Black stayed there as a boy.'

'I have neither the time nor the inclination to look for Lily Potter, Tom,' I said. 'Get someone else to do that.'

He smiled his cold smile, the one that told me that whatever wonders had unfolded before his eyes, were merely to confirm his own omnipotence, and I doubted if I had moved forward at all.

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