Chapter Forty-Eight

I began to climb the stairs to where I knew he would be, probably waiting for me as he had waited for me that awful night that changed all of our lives forever. I made my way along the minstrels' gallery and stopped outside the library door, hardly needing the throb of fury that the white stone gave me to know he was behind that door.

I don't suppose I was surprised that the fire was lit in the library, and that the room was just as it had been that night: the precious volumes on their shelves, the comfortable leather seats, the velvet drapes, as though he had stripped the charm in that room alone, and left Ethel's illusion for others to make of it what they would.

In fact, only one thing surprised me. It was not Riddle who paced in front of the fireplace, it was a woman, and I didn't need to wait for her to throw back her hood one-handed whilst her other held the baby to her breast in a hellish parody of a mother nursing a child. I already knew it was Andromeda Black.

'Give me the child, Andromeda,' I said, surprised to hear my voice was cool and controlled through the desperate fear and howling uncertainty that raged within me, as the stone throbbed a warning. 'The child is mine.'

'Yours?' she queried and I couldn't bear to look into her eyes to read the lies. 'I think not, Severus.'

'The child belongs to my Lord now,' I said carefully, and I knew I felt the stone relax a little that I had seen through his ploy, even as I knew the hardest bit was to come. 'That is Tom's child, Andromeda,' I said.

I could feel his elation, his euphoria that I had crossed a line for him, that I would sacrifice my love for him. I knew, too, that unknowingly he had set me a harder task than any, the same one he had set me when I had cursed Ethel, and that I would have to destroy what was dearest to me. He smiled, the smile such a travesty of Andromeda's own that it was all I could do not to kill him there and then, but I had to get the child; nothing was more important to me at that moment than saving the child.

I had no way of knowing if it was a charm or Polyjuice; one would have been as easy for him as the other. I suspected the latter though; the potion could easily be obtained in Knockturn Alley, or just as easily brewed and kept ready, waiting only for the essence of whomsoever he chose to be. He would have had no difficulty obtaining hair or suchlike belonging to Andromeda, not when her harpy of a sister was... had been... I thought with a tiny surge of satisfaction, one of his most favoured disciples, and I wondered how often he used it, and just what guises he had and what he had overheard.

But now it was just him and me, and the child, of course.

'Tom?' I asked, and I knew I had to put on the performance of a lifetime. I looked down to my arm, as though asking the Dark Mark to confirm my suspicions. 'Tom,' I repeated, and I only prayed I sounded as though some type of miracle had taken place.

'For you, my love, I shall be anyone,' he said, moving closer to me, the baby held to the mockery of Andromeda's left breast and Mordestone in his free hand. He rubbed the stone on his right breast, and I felt the nauseated fury, and wanted to tell him to keep his filthy mouth shut and his depravities to himself, but I didn't; I had to get him to give up the child.

'I shall live a while in this body, my love, and perhaps...' He broke off thoughtfully, as though conceiving some other madness, shocking me yet again when I thought I could no longer be shocked. 'Perhaps I could bear us a child.' The idea excited him, and I wondered at the complexity of his lunacy, and why I was the only one who saw its depth for what it was. Tom Riddle was the epitome not only of evil, but of insanity too, and his madness made him all the more dangerous. He did not know he had limits, hence he had none.

I began to move towards him, the way one might approach a dangerous animal, and it was only then that I saw the glassy sheen of perspiration on his brow, the tightness at the corners of his eyes, and the way the edges of his lips, Andromeda's lips, were drawn down, as though he was suppressing some terrible agony. 'Are you unwell, Tom?' I ventured.

'Not unwell, my love,' he said, backing away the same amount of steps as I had taken towards him. 'And tomorrow, of course, I shall feel the benefit again of your wonderful work.'

At last I understood what ailed him. 'You've taken the potion?' I asked, failing to keep the incredulity from my voice. 'It is far too early, Tom. How... how much have you taken?' The questions tumbled one on top of the other. I glanced to where the baby nestled in his arm. 'The child is only... five weeks old, six at the most.'

He smiled at me. 'Severus, Severus,' he said, 'have we not waited long enough, my love?'

'This cannot be rushed, Tom,' I said, my mind racing with the ramifications of what he thought he had done. 'This has to be done according to my instructions... according to what I have spent months researching.'

'Tonight, my love, you will begin to prepare a fresh batch of Aqua Vitae for the boy,' he said, quite ignoring my expostulations. 'It must be ready for tomorrow.'

'The boy must be fifty-three days old, Tom,' I replied with heat. 'That is not variable.'

'And so he shall be, my Severus, because not only will you prepare Aqua Vitae, but an aging potion too, a very specific one,' he said, in his reasoning way, the one that knew no reason. 'You see, unlike you, my love... you are my love, are you not, Severus?' he asked, breaking off in what at first seemed to be a lapse of concentration that I hoped was something to do with the symptoms of abstinence from the Veritaserum buffer he'd unknowingly ingested. 'Unlike you,' he went on, knocking any notions of petty victory away from me, 'I know exactly how many days old the child is, and I find myself wondering why you have not been keeping the same meticulous count, if you think it is so vital.'

'For how long have you taken the potion, Tom?' I asked, ignoring his impossible demands.

He flinched, as though I had struck him, and I knew the howling need he was feeling, and wondered how to exploit it without endangering the child.

'Twelve days, of course,' he said. 'Was that not what was instructed? They were your instructions, my Severus,' he hissed, his face twisting in a way that dragged Andromeda's features in a way they'd never known. 'Your specific instructions were for the potion to be taken for three days, abstaining on the fourth. That had to be repeated three times,' he said, his voice rising in hysteria. 'So, now, and I do mean now, Severus, it is the time for you to prepare a batch of the potion for the child.' He drew a long breath through his nose, in some sort of attempt to calm himself. 'Now,' he said, slipping Mordestone into the pocket of Andromeda's robe and holding out his free hand, 'give me my potion. I shall require it shortly.' He glanced to the window to where the darkness was becoming lighter, and I could almost feel him counting the minutes until the dawn broke.

'I do not have it with me,' I said, and then I felt the white stone throb again, just once, as though to remind me of something, and it was just as well something was there to help me because I was almost beyond constructive thought. 'Anyway,' I said carefully, 'if you have taken the potion for twelve days, it is now the boy's turn, Tom. You must abstain for a year.'

He drew back again as though I had lashed out. 'You must have something else,' he hissed. 'You have brought me something, have you not? And if not, why not?' he asked. 'You may tell me that after you tell why you have come here, if not to deliver it.'

'I had no idea that you had begun to take the potion,' I replied cautiously, aware that I had begun to tread on very thin ice, and that his desperation instead of weakening him would only make him even more dangerous.

The baby began to fret in his arm, and Riddle moved him to his other arm as I felt the stone in my pocket throb in fury that I somehow thought had to with Riddle holding the child with the hand that had held Mordestone.

'Let me take the child, Tom,' I said. 'I shall go to Spinner's End and collect something to ease your withdrawal, and the ingredients for the new potion. That will allow you to rest for a couple of hours.'

'I think not, Severus,' he said, nodding to where Rabastan Lestrange had appeared in the doorway. That made me wonder how many other Death Eaters were there, and if they had just arrived, or if they had been there all the time.

Two other men appeared behind Lestrange, and one of them, Morton Schultz, was out of breath and seemed to have been hurrying to keep up with Peter Pettigrew.

Macnair and Bellatrix are dead,' Pettigrew said, drawing his wand as he spun to me. 'I saw him...' He didn't have the opportunity to finish as Morton Schultz's death curse hit him square on the chest.

'A traitor, Tom,' Schultz said, nodding to Pettigrew. 'I think he was going to kill you too.' The old Death Eater avoided looking at me.

'It matters not,' Riddle replied, and it was only then that I noticed with an odd feeling of relief that he had reverted to his own appearance in a way that made me sure it had been a charm and not Polyjuice after all. 'He has provided the only service he was capable of. Now,' he said, turning to Lestrange, 'have you brought the stag?'

'Yes, my Lord,' Lestrange replied. 'Shall I bring it up here?'

'Not all of it, Lestrange,' Riddle murmured. 'I only require a spoon... made from a horn. It does have horns, Lestrange, does it not?' He turned again to me, still clutching the baby, and looking down on him. 'It seems a pity, my Severus, does it not, that I was unable to capture James Potter's Patronus and use its horn. I'm sure it would have improved the efficacy of your wonderful work.'

'Shall I kill the stag first?' Lestrange asked, saving me any comment on his madness.

'Rabastan, if I thought you in any way capable of stilling the beast sufficiently to harvest a spoon from one of its horns, I would have invited you to do so,' Riddle replied, his voice rising as he spoke. 'I shall slay the beast when the time is right, and you, Rabastan, will go to Spinner's End and collect the items from a list which Severus is about to prepare for you.'

I was about to stammer out excuses for keeping Lestrange away from Spinner's End when I felt the shield again, only that time it didn't so much tighten as twist a little.

'We're here, Severus dear. Let him send whomever he wants to Spinner's End; I have brought all we need with me.' Ethel's voice had slipped into my mind. 'You must stay with the Dark One and the child now, dear. Whatever happens around you, your task is to stay with the child until the Dark One is slain.' And with that she slipped from my mind, leaving everything unanswered that I hadn't had time to ask.

As Lestrange opened the library door I heard an unearthly howl which seemed to come from the very bowels of the manor. The baby fretted again as Riddle spun to the door, dipping into his robe to withdraw Mordestone once more, and I felt the tightening of the shield again. I knew we had to hurry. I had no way of knowing if Salazar Slytherin broke through what hell would break loose with him.

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