Now that school's started again, I probably won't be updating as often. This fic will be finished by October at the very earliest.

Danielle spent the remainder of the day feeling numb, not quite able to process the fact that Schefflur was dead and that she had used the Cruciatus Curse on him. It had been necessary, she knew, but something that still gnawed deep inside her, pricking at her conscience. He had deserved every bit of it, and perhaps even more, but Danielle couldn't turn into a heartless, remorseless killer like Tom despite having known him for years. Sometimes having a sense of right and wrong turned out to be a detriment rather than a blessing.

But at least now they only had one enemy to worry about. Slytherin had fled, and Tom was confident that they were safe for the moment, as he would want to hide and re-evaluate his plans before striking again. This bought them only a matter of days, but Danielle would take any reprieve she could get.

There was, however, another factor that she hadn't taken into account, and that was Will. If what Schefflur had said was true—and she suspected it was—Slytherin would want to get his hands on their son first. Danielle didn't like the option of guarding him at all times, since that would be akin to putting him right in the middle of danger, but on the other hand she couldn't bear giving him to Mrs Cole, even if it was only for a short period of time. She would normally consider giving him to Minnie to look after, but the house-elf was still at St Mungo's and likely would be for the next week.

After she had put Will to bed, she dragged herself to their bedroom, briefly lamenting the fact that she had left the red dress back in 2011, but unable to muster up any semblance of regret. She felt tired and drained and older than she ever had.

Tom was brooding as usual, staring out the window with his hands clenched tightly into fists and his back to her. He stood perfectly still, looking every bit like a human statue. But Danielle barely noticed his looks anymore. They had used to stun her, to make her feel like an ugly duckling when she stood next him, but after knowing someone for so long, perhaps one got used to their appearance, whether they were exceptionally handsome or exceptionally disfigured. Danielle didn't see a ridiculously handsome young man anymore—he would forever be a young man, now—she merely saw Tom Riddle. Her husband.

"I was thinking that we could send Will to Hogwarts," Danielle said, breaking the silence. Her voice cracked in exhaustion, but she forced herself to press on. "He would be safe there."

"In the care of whom?" Tom replied, striking down her idea with his usual condescension. "Do you believe that Slytherin cannot find ways to get into the castle when he built a secret chamber in its depths? If anything, that is where he will expect us to go first."

Well, I was just trying to help, Danielle wanted to snap back, but she sank down onto the bed instead, closing her fingers around the locket Horcrux.

"Did you see him?" she asked after a pregnant pause. "Voldemort."

Tom didn't turn back to her, although she wished she could see his expression. "Yes."

Danielle didn't expect an explanation, and was not surprised when none followed. "Then do you regret it? Not becoming Voldemort, I mean."

Now this time he did turn back and look at her. His bright blue eyes, the most prominent trait he had passed down to his son, were almost thoughtful as he answered, "No, I do not regret it. If I could be defeated by a child, then I was not powerful in the first place. There are other ways of seeking supremacy, Clara, and I would not be so foolishly hoodwinked again."

"I always thought that because Voldemort made so many Horcruxes, he lost his intellect as well as his humanity," Danielle said. "Dark Magic always leaves its mark, or so everyone always says."

"It does," Tom agreed. He drifted over to her, impassive as ever, and took the locket from her hand, pulling the chain as taut as it would go without taking it off her neck. Danielle wondered if he knew she could easily destroy the Horcrux, that giving it to her must have taken him a surprising amount of trust. She supposed he had known, but then again she could never quite shake off the feeling that she was little more than a pawn in his games.

"You are not a pawn," Tom answered, letting go of the locket, and Danielle stared up at him, startled. She had almost forgotten about his Legilimency. The longer she stayed in the past, the easier it was becoming for him to loosen the block on her mind that had once stopped him from ever discovering her secrets. "If you are to liken our relationship to a board game, Clara, then you must know I would never allow a pawn to become so close."

"Then what am I?" she whispered. Even despite her exhaustion, she still found it in her to wind her legs around his, pulling him back onto the bed. She was trapped underneath him in a second, feeling the comforting warmth of his body against hers. "The queen?"

He smirked as the bedroom door slammed shut of its own accord. "I suppose you could say that."

Danielle rolled them over on the bed so that she was straddling him, grinning ruefully despite herself at his almost inaudible groan. It was indescribably satisfying whenever she found proof that, underneath the front he had put up for years and even his Horcrux, he was still essentially human, and subject to human needs and desires. "Checkmate," she whispered, and moved to press her mouth to his.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Danielle woke up to the moonlight shining directly into their room. At first she wondered if she had been woken by Will's cries, but the manor was completely silent, and even Alistair was fast asleep in his cage, his head tucked under his wing. Although she had always kept the window open, Fawkes had never returned to them after they had first brought Will home. It had been over half a year, and she had never seen hide nor hair of the phoenix. Danielle guessed that he had gone back to his master, now that they had no need for him anymore.

"I'm going to find Dumbledore," she whispered after a moment, knowing that Tom was awake. It was the wisest next move. Dumbledore would know what to do about Will and Slytherin.

She hoped.

Danielle expected Tom to object or otherwise forbid her from contacting Dumbledore, but he looked amused instead, as if she was a child making an outrageous statement. "And how exactly are you going to accomplish that?" he asked. "He obviously does not want to be found."

"Georgina knows," Danielle insisted. "She'll tell me—"

"I suppose you shall be as successful in that endeavour as well," Tom said disparagingly. "There is no guarantee Dumbledore will give you the information you need."

"But it's my last hope," Danielle argued, resting her head on his shoulder. "I can't just leave Will unguarded. Slytherin could be after us right now."

"That is unlikely," Tom interrupted. His eyes were glowing peculiarly in the half-light. "He would likely be attempting to create more Horcruxes if he has not already."

"Well, then, that's even worse!" Danielle exclaimed, before remembering Will across the corridor and quickly lowering her voice. "Do you have a better plan?"

"Yes," Tom replied, and Danielle found it was relatively easy now to ignore the arrogance in his tone. "He must be found first. He will not be expecting us to go after him."

Unsurprisingly, Danielle was awoken very early the next morning by Will, and she fell asleep on the floor next to his crib, not having the strength to pick herself up and go back to her own room. Tom had gone to smooth things over at the Ministry, leaving Danielle to fend for herself.

She didn't have a clear plan in mind about how exactly she was supposed to find either Georgina or Dumbledore, but some shrewd part of her brain knew how she could persuade Georgina to tell her Dumbledore's whereabouts. After she'd had a cup of coffee and was marginally more awake, her brain slowly began to put more pieces of the puzzle together until she had a better idea of what she was supposed to do. Tom would surely laugh at her for having such a complicated plan, but what other options were there?

But there was something else, something just as important, that had to be taken care of before she left. Danielle debated for an agonizingly long time over whether Will should be in the room or not, but she finally decided he should stay. It might, after all, be his only chance to meet them.

The previous night, she had taken advantage of Tom's unguarded state and asked him how to remove the Resurrection Stone from the Gaunt family ring. "You're not the only one who can manipulate people," she had breathed, and the ensuing scowl on his face had been something she vowed to remember for the rest of her life. Her lips quirking upward slightly at the memory, Danielle placed Will on the table, casting a charm so he couldn't fall off, and retrieved the ring from her pocket, holding it flat in the palm of her hand. Tom had warned her that there was no guarantee it would work and not to get her hopes up, but of course Danielle hadn't listened to him. She felt suddenly afraid as she contemplated the consequences: what if her family was angry at her? What if they didn't want to speak to her and were upset at being brought back to the mortal world?

The questions had gnawed at her until she hadn't been able to bear it anymore. Besides, she would rather see her family cross at her than not to see them at all. How many people had ever had the opportunity to speak to their loved ones after their death? It would be exactly like looking a gift centaur in the mouth.

"Well, here goes, Will," she said aloud. "D'you think I'll be able to do this?" But her son was too busy trying to break down the invisible barriers to pay her any attention, a concentrated frown on his tiny face as he repeatedly slammed his hands against them, apparently trying to figure out why he couldn't pass through empty air.

Danielle took one last calming breath before closing her eyes and turning the ring over in her hand three times, her heart skipping a beat when she felt something smooth and round fall into her palm. A peculiar shock went through her, and Will let out a surprised cry.

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of his voice, and she reached through the barricade to grab him. But he wasn't distressed—just sounding more curious than anything. In a manner that seemed far too advanced for a six-month-old, he caught and held her gaze before reaching out an arm to point across the room, where four flickering figures were clearly visible.

Danielle's breath caught in her throat, and she automatically stepped towards them, her eyes drinking in their faces and saving them to memory: her parents were both dressed casually, in jeans and jumpers, while Andy was in his Hogwarts uniform and William was dressed in the plain black robes she had first seen him in. Danielle shrank back from her family, expecting them to be glaring at her, but they were all beaming, each one looking at her with fondness. They seemed corporeal enough, but not quite solid—something more than ghosts but less than human beings.

Her mother spoke first. "Sweetheart," she began, her voice so comforting that Danielle's throat ached with homesickness. "Clara. You have been extraordinarily brave."

"I…I have?" Danielle stuttered. "But I thought you would be angry at me. I abandoned you." She didn't understand the pity in her family's eyes.

"You didn't abandon us," Andy spoke up. "You would have been killed if you had nowhere to go back to. There was nothing you could have done, sis."

"I fell in love with the future Voldemort!" Danielle cried, tightening her grip on Will so that he gave a squeak of discomfort. "I expected you to be furious about that!"

"Is he?" Mr Bailey asked vaguely; Danielle whirled around to her father. "Would you have stayed with him if he was?"

"Yes!" she exclaimed. "I love Tom. I can't stay away from him, no matter what he does. But I can't just stand aside and watch him put innocent people in danger."

"And you have not done that," William said, smiling gently at her. "In fact, you have saved countless lives. You should be proud of yourself, Clara."

Danielle sighed, wanting to put her face in her hands but knowing she couldn't look away from her family for even a second. "That doesn't change the fact he'll still be around when I die. I can't save anyone then."

"Then it is your job to convince him that immortality is not worth the price," Mrs Bailey urged her. "He already knows that death is not the end, but does he truly believe it? You must find a way to make him understand."

"So…do I secretly destroy the Horcrux and pretend that it's intact all along?" Danielle cried. "That's impossible!"

"Not necessarily," said Andy, sounding very unlike the thirteen-year-old she had known. "There are other ways to stop it, and you know exactly what they are. You have the rest of your life to figure it out."

Danielle stared at each member of her family in turn, dismayed. She had absolutely no idea what they were talking about. "Then I guess I'm stuck for now," she said gloomily. "Because I don't know how much longer the rest of my life will even be. I need help."

"Then help will always be given at Hogwarts to those who are worthy of it," William said, speaking in riddles as usual. "You were planning to travel there anyway, weren't you? You might just find the answers you need there."

She swallowed hard. "I know. I need to make sure that he's safe before I try anything." She was, of course, speaking of both Tom and Will. Danielle could never get rid of the nagging feeling that Tom's arrogance would one day severely cost him.

"He'll find some way to escape at the last moment," Mrs Bailey said. "He is your son, after all."

Danielle grinned sheepishly. "Thanks, Mom," she told her, wanting nothing more than to reach out to all of them and see if she could touch them, or if they would just turn out to be empty air. Were they even any more than just a figment of her imagination? But no, they had to be; Will could see them too. His blue eyes were wide as he stared around at his grandparents and uncles. Danielle stroked his hair comfortingly as she added, "I don't want you to leave me again."

"We never left you," said Andy. "You've never been alone."

Tears welled up in Danielle's eyes, and she searched in vain for a way to tell them just how much each of them meant to her. But their edges were beginning to warp and fade; she scrambled to speak quickly lest they disappear before she had a chance to finish. "Just…don't lose faith in me," she said. "I'll see you all again someday. I promise."

"We'll be waiting," her father vowed. Danielle watched them silently as they disappeared one by one, each smiling lovingly at her.

The Resurrection Stone slipped from her fingers, and she collapsed to the ground with it, Will burying his face in her shoulder as she cried.

To no one's surprise, Tom found himself invited to have lunch with McLaird as soon as he'd returned to the Ministry. He had politely declined the Minister's offers to speak privately to him for months, although most employees of his position and status would kill to have such an opportunity. But in light of recent events, and because Tom so strongly suspected that McLaird was under the Imperius Curse, he felt that a thorough analysis of the situation was long overdue.

When he was let in to the Minister's office after knocking on the door, Tom found himself seated in a plush chair sitting across from McLaird, who was smiling blandly at him. Tom hadn't touched the platter of lamb stew that sat in front of him, although McLaird had already almost finished his.

"Is there anything in particular you wish to discuss with me, Minister?" he asked him, taking careful note of his dilated pupils and the slightly vacant look to his eyes, both sure signs of the Imperius Curse. If Schefflur had been the one to cast it, Tom realized, it would have been lifted by now, since he was dead. In all likelihood it had been Slytherin, and Tom was fully aware that he could have been playing right into the ancient wizard's hands by accepting this meeting. But he was not so unsure of himself: in the few brief encounters they'd had, Tom had gotten a fairly extensive glimpse into how Slytherin's mind worked. He had, after all, been the Heir of Slytherin and had been the first person in centuries to open the Chamber of Secrets. If anyone had an upper hand in this battle, it was Tom himself.

"Yes, there indeed is," McLaird said with a heavy sigh, pretending to be fixated on his food instead of Tom. "I assume you are wondering why you have been promoted at such a fast rate."

Tom weighed his words carefully before replying, "Yes, sir, I have."

McLaird seemed not to notice the thinly veiled mockery in his tone as he answered, "Not only are you the most reliable and efficient employee I have ever had the pleasure to encounter, you are by far the most intelligent and learned." He leaned forward. "I was wrong about you when we first met, Tom. I would like to offer my apologies."

Tom allowed a smirk to cross his face, knowing McLaird would dismiss it as a genuine smile. Really, the idiocy of the Ministry was pathetic. How in the name of Merlin had they allowed such a bumbling idiot to gain power? Tom despised Dumbledore, but at least he was forced to acknowledge his competence. McLaird didn't even have that in his favour. Even a Muggle would surely be able to do a better job. "That is very intriguing, sir," he said softly. "Considering that you have five men disguised under Disillusionment Charms waiting just outside the entrance to the office. Why the need for increased security?"

McLaird's eyes widened. Tom sat back and waited for the Veritaserum he had slipped into the Minister's drink to take effect.