Chapter 18: The Plunge

A door opposite the entrance opened slowly and a broad-shouldered man stepped through with exaggerated carefulness like he was trying to make as little noise as possible. Marina caught a glimpse of the small, dark room and a child in a tiny bed before he painstakingly closed the door behind him, wincing when the latch clicked.

He turned to the older woman and murmured something in Albanian. He shot the strangers in his living room a curious look, and the woman grabbed his arm and started muttering to him. Marina – who was quickly coming to the realisation that no one spoke any English – started wondering how successful their trip was going to be. Even ignoring the lingering tension between her and Riddle, she didn't see how he was supposed to talk to this man and empathise with him if neither of them could communicate with each other.

'Unless,' her feverish mind thought wildly, 'Riddle secretly speaks Albanian and has just been sitting on that this whole time. Or, plot twist, this man speaks Parseltongue.'

Marina snorted loudly at the mental image of the two of them sitting there hissing at each other by the fire, drawing a judgemental look from Riddle that made her compose herself. The small boy still sat poking the fire absentmindedly, his attention fixed on Riddle as he stared at him with wide eyes. He didn't look much older than ten.

Finally, the man approached them, the woman close behind. He pointed at her and Riddle and then pointed at the door, shaking his head with a frown. The storm rattled outside and rain pummeled the windows even louder as if to demonstrate his point. He pointed at them again and then gestured at his house with a broad, tanned smile.

"Is he inviting us to stay?" Marina asked out loud.

"Yes, your observational skills are unparalleled," Riddle said dryly.

The man watched them intently, and Marina realised he was waiting for a response. She gave him a warm smile and nodded, trying to convey her gratitude across the language barrier.

"Check if they speak French," Riddle said suddenly.

Marina looked at him sceptically. "I don't think –"

"Just try it," Riddle interrupted hotly.

Marina sighed and turned to the Albanian couple. "Français?" she asked.

They both gave her blank looks.

Marina looked back at Riddle with a physical manifestation of 'I told you so' on her face, which he ignored.

The man suddenly moved towards the middle of the room and produced a series of rustic mugs from a cupboard. The woman whom Marina assumed was his wife bustled off in the opposite direction towards the open kitchen where a heavy iron kettle sat hissing steam on the old stovetop. They arranged the mugs and the kettle on the table and excitedly produced an old-fashioned tin that they pried open to reveal a series of thick, sugar crusted biscuits. When the spread was complete, they waved Riddle and Marina over with broad smiles.

Marina stood and took a seat at the table, smiling back - they had already won her heart over. The woman poured her a steaming mug of dark, sweet-smelling tea and offered her the slightly battered but immaculately polished tin of biscuits. She took one gratefully and nodded her thanks – the biscuits were evidently the peak of indulgence.

Riddle was slower to join but took a seat next to Marina and received the same treatment. He looked strangely reserved, like he couldn't figure out what the couple was doing.

"Relax," Marina said to him, sipping the tea. It was delicious and tasted strongly like cloves. "They're being hospitable."

"You really are too trusting," Riddle said, peering down at the cup of tea before him.

Marina ignored him, watching as the couple poured each other tea and conversed playfully. Even across the language barrier, their little laughs and creased faces showed a love for each other that transcended translation.

Chuckling at something his wife had said, the man placed down his mug and turned to Marina. "Nevin," he said, placing a large hand on his chest.

"Shpatena," smiled the woman, placing her hand on her chest to match her husband. She pointed at the small boy who still sat by the fire, attention still rapt by Riddle. "Paskal."

Marina nodded, repeating the names in her head to avoid forgetting them. "Marina," she said, pointing at herself, and then at Riddle. "Tom."

They looked at her excitedly. "Marina?" Nevin repeated.

Marina was taken aback, nodding in confusion at their response. Nevin said something in another language, different enough that Marina could tell it wasn't Albanian, but still not something she could understand.

"I think it's Greek," Riddle said beside her, watching closely. "Marina is a Greek name, isn't it?"

"Oh," Marina said, sorry to disappoint them as she looked back and gave a sheepish, exaggerated shrug to show that she still didn't understand.

They both took it in great stride, smiling and chatting and waving their hands. Their countenance fiercely contrasted the howling storm outside which tore at the little house even whilst Nevin and Shpatena cheerily refilled their cups.

"Er –" Riddle said from beside her.

Marina turned to see little Paskal pressed up against Riddle's chair, pulling at his sleeve and looking up at with the same wide eyes. Riddle looked up at her, bewildered.

"He must want to show you something," Marina laughed.

"What do I do?" Riddle asked flatly.

"Go with him, obviously" she said, taking an amused sip of her tea. "Don't be mean."

If they hadn't been in company, Marina could tell he would have scowled at her. Instead he stood with a composed expression and allowed the boy to lead him over to the far corner where Paskal knelt on the flagstone floor and carefully open a wooden chest. The boy withdrew what looked like a toy train and handed it to Riddle solemnly.

Riddle took it automatically and gave Marina a stranded look from across the room. She gestured encouragingly, deeply amused. Riddle slowly knelt as Paskal looked inside the chest again, this time producing a large wooden toy plane. Marina stifled her laughter at Riddle's expression – rarely did she see him so obviously outside of his element.

When they were done with the tea, Marina helped Nevin and Shpatena clean up. As she plunged her hands into the sink's warm soapy water to wash the cups, Marina tried to ignore the purple staining that was beginning to appear at the tips of her fingers.

Marina sat by the fire watching Riddle try to entertain Paskal's enthusiastic antics as Nevin and Shpatena spoke in calm, content voices on the couch next to her, the storm still raging on outside. The evening was not going how she'd expected, but she was enjoying it nonetheless. The quiet, kind hospitality had wiped away the frantic turbulence of the past few days and she could see that it was getting to Riddle, too.

Paskal was chattering dramatically as he arranged the toys in some intense story narrative, handing them to Riddle only to snatch them away and move them around, engrossed in the world he had created. Riddle sat silently but tolerantly, watching the scene around him evolve with a patience Marina hadn't seen in him before.

Riddle caught Marina watching him.

"Having fun?" Marina asked in amusement.

"I think the soldier is holding the train captive after it betrayed his former boss, the model car," Riddle replied with impressive restraint.

"Oh shit, your evening is so much more interesting than mine," Marina said in false jealously, holding her hands out to the fire.

"Oh, wait a minute," Riddle said as Paskal knocked the soldier over with a loud exclamation and lifted a tattered plush rabbit from behind the wooden chest. "The soldier has been undercut. The rabbit leads a rival gang, if I am to understand."

"Baba?" said a small voice.

They all turned to see a tiny girl peeking out from the door from which Nevin had emerged earlier that evening. She was giving nervous, uncertain glances at Marina and Riddle.

"Sophika!" Nevin exclaimed. He started speaking in soft, reassuring tones as he waved the small girl over. She emerged from her room clutching a large, slightly patchy teddy bear that obscured most of her face. She made it to her father's arms and he hugged her tightly, still speaking to her calmly. He pointed to Marina and she heard her name, hearing Tom's a moment later. The girl nodded but didn't lower the teddy bear. Shpatena reached over and smoothed the girl's hair, murmuring to her warmly.

There was a crash, and Marina looked around sharply to see the little metal motorcycle toy that Riddle had been delegated lying in the middle of Paskal's set up. The young boy gave a shout and picked up the motorcycle, checking it for dents as he looked at Riddle, betrayed.

"I'm sorry," Riddle said, his face tight. "I –" he closed his eyes, leaning hard on his arm to support himself.

"Are you alright?" Marina said sharply, alarmed.

"I think – I think the Horcrux –" Riddle grimaced, unable to continue.

Marina's thoughts raced. Why hadn't he collapsed like last time? Her eyes darted to her bag where it sat next to the couch.

"I think you have to get closer to the diadem for it to work," Marina said slowly, glancing back at Riddle.

He had managed to open his eyes, and he nodded with his lips pressed tightly together. "I think you're right. But…" he looked down at Paskal who was staring in shock back at him.

Before he could say another word, Riddle keeled over and gave a jolt like he had been electrocuted. Paskal kicked backwards and shuffled away from him, looking aghast. The small boy began yammering in panic and scrambled over to his parents looking scared.

Marina sprung up and dashed to Riddle, placing a hand on his shoulder as she crouched beside his hunched form.

"What's going on?" she asked desperately. "What should I do?"

"It's too close," Riddle gasped. "I can feel it – it's trying to get to me – it hurts –"

Marina heard Shpatena give a shriek and looked around in panic. Marina's bag was trembling on the floor like it contained a frenzied animal.

Thinking quickly, Marina dashed over to grab her bag and turned to face the family. "Sleep," she said, desperately. "He just needs some sleep."

They stared back in alarm and confusion.

Marina watched as Riddle gave another jolt and his face contorted in pain behind them. Frantically, she brought her hands up to one side of her face and closed her eyes in mime slumber. "Sleep," she repeated desperately, looking at them.

Nevin stood, guided his daughter to Shpatena's open arms, and stepped towards the door from which little Sophika had come. He gestured inside quickly as he gave Riddle a concerned look.

"Thank you," Marina breathed, heaving her bag inside the room before turning to Riddle. She pulled one of his arms away from his body, wrapped it around her shoulders, and helped guide him towards the door. "Thank you," she said again as she passed Nevin, trying to convey how she felt through the words she knew he didn't understand. Nevin nodded, allowing her to pass with the struggling Riddle and closed the door softly behind them.

Marina let Riddle collapse on one of the two small beds in the room, turning to her bag to produce the diadem.

"Wait," Riddle said quickly in a strained voice.

She turned, confused. His face was fearful.

"I don't – I don't know if I can –" his jaw clenched, and he stared at her bag with a hard look. He was wracked with another shock and blood beaded on his lip as he bit it in pain.

"Hey," Marina said loudly, leaning forward and putting a hand on his shoulder. "You can do this. I know you can."

"What happened to thinking I'm useless?" he said with a weak attempt at a smirk as he breathed heavily against the pain. "You thought so little of me last night."

Marina waved her hand. "This has nothing to do with that," she exclaimed, bewildered that he was bringing it up. He winced as another wave of pain seemed to sweep through him.

"I thought – that you might not – want to come," Riddle said between breaths.

"You thought because of that, I'd pull out of coming with you?" Marina gaped.

He just looked at her, an arm wrapped across his body as he breathed hard through his nose. His lack of an answer was answer enough.

"Tom, no offense but that's ridiculous. One stupid fight doesn't mean I'm going to give up on you," she said disbelievingly.

He remained silent. After a long moment, his eyes lowered to her bag.

"Okay," he said, jaw tight. "I'm ready."

Marina hesitated, before pulling out the time-turner from beneath her jumper and looped the chain over Riddle's neck. She used her foot to pull her bag over and retrieved the glittering diadem from inside. She looked back at Riddle whose gaze was fixed on it, somewhere between fearful and determined.

"You can do this," she repeated firmly.

He gave a stiff nod. His face was set in resolve, but his eyes searched her fearfully. Marina held up the diadem between them. Riddle raised his hand as if to take it, but his fingertips had not even brushed it when his eyes rolled back on his head and he fell to the side, pulling Marina with him. Marina seized her bag, threw the diadem inside, and slammed her hand into the side of the time-turner.

She held on to Riddle's arm as tightly as she could as they spun through the wild time storm, the clouds raging around them and threatening to pull them from each other. Her throat hurt and she realised she was screaming, adrenaline-filled and instinctive at the sheer centripetal force tearing at her body. Just like last time, right as she thought her grasp might fail and she would be thrown into the storm, everything stopped, and they were in the same room illuminated with bright morning sunlight through empty windows. The air was cold and birds sang outside as blood spilled from Riddle's mouth and nose and he began shaking violently on the floor before her.

"Remus!" Marina bellowed. "Moody!"

In the back of her mind she noticed the changes to the room – the lack of furniture, the cobwebbed corners, the pale, time bleached wooden walls in disarray. A lurch went through her as she remembered what had happened. Voldemort had killed them. Nevin, maybe Shpatena and the children too. Tears erupted from Marina's eyes as she looked around the abandoned room, the door-less arch through which she could see an empty living room and a cold, dead fireplace.

As Remus and Moody Apparated before them with a crack, Marina's sobs wracked her body as her eyes caught sight of the empty wooden peg on the wall through the door.

They were dead, and Voldemort had taken what he'd wanted.

She still gripped Riddle's arm as she cried, as Moody seizing her shoulder and they Apparated away. She barely paid attention to the familiar scene of St Mungo's, the healers that clustered around them, their tense voices and orderly shouts. She felt blood on her own face, saw it on her purpling hands, watched the discolouration spread like ink in water under her skin and up her fingers, further than it had ever gone before.

Could they have done something? Could they have warned them?

Marina's throat was hurting again and distantly she could hear her own gut-wrenching cries – but they were dulled, muffled like she was underwater. A wand was pointed at her face and everything went black.

Her sleep was dreamless but haunting, and she awoke with hot tears on her cheeks. Riddle sat in the chair next to her bed, his face shadowed even in the brightly lit ward. Marina turned her face toward him and he looked up from the book that lay tiredly in his lap.

They locked eyes, and Marina knew that the exhaustion that she saw in his face was mirrored on her own. The thought of Nevin seemed to arise between them, of Shpatena and Paskal, of tiny little Sophika and her shabby teddy bear. Marina could see them in Riddle's expression, and she knew that he could see them in hers.

Marina closed her eyes again, unable to stop the tears. Her heart felt hollow and bruised. There was the rustle of a page turning, but Riddle said nothing. He seemed to know that in that moment there was nothing to say, that there was only the crushing feeling of understanding.

Marina didn't want to understand anymore. She wanted to break whatever thick wall held back her memories of home, let that old life wash over her and wipe away this strange, devastating world she'd been plunged into. She wanted someone to come and tell her it was all a bizarre dream, a story, a figment of her imagination. But still she lay there, unable to shake the memory of Shpatena's smiling face as she offered her a tin of biscuits in the warmth of her home.

Sleep evaded her, leaving her to wallow in her own grief. As the hours passed, she heard the voices of Remus and Mrs Weasley, but she didn't reply. Guilt festered in her chest. The knowledge that they had said nothing to the family, had not warned them, had done nothing but think of their own plan tugged at her incessantly.

"Marina," Riddle said quietly.

She slowly looked over, eyes red and tired.

He only jerked his head at something to his side. She slowly lowered her gaze to see Dumbledore standing by the foot of her bed.

"I gather that this trip was particularly difficult for you," Dumbledore said in a clear, sombre voice.

Marina stared at him for a cold moment and then looked back up at the ceiling. She had no energy for Dumbledore.

"Marina, you must talk," Dumbledore said. "Tom informs me that you have not eaten since arriving."

She stared at the ceiling, tracing the little wooden fixtures that held each beam into place. There was a sudden pressure beside her feet and she distantly registered that Dumbledore had sat on her bed.

"Marina," he said, much more softly. "Please."

"What do you want from me?" she asked quietly, her voice coming out hoarse and weak.

"For you to talk," said Dumbledore, calmly. "You were not to change the past, you should not blame yourself for the fate of that poor family."

Marina remained resolutely silent.

"You cannot go through this alone," Dumbledore urged.

Despite herself, Marina gave a derisive snort. She looked down at Dumbledore coldly. "You were perfectly happy to leave me to go through it alone for the last two months, Dumbledore, don't change on my behalf," she croaked.

"I understand that you're angry," he began.

"Angry," Marina repeated, voice a hollow whisper. Dumbledore fell silent. She forced her elbows back and propped herself up on her forearms. Her hands were deep purple down to her wrists. "Do you really think I'm angry?"

He said nothing, which was probably the wisest thing she'd ever seen him do.

"I am… exhausted," said Marina breathlessly. "I sit and wait for you to take whatever it is you want to take from me. My life, my time, my health, my happiness…"

"Marina," Dumbledore tried again.

She wasn't having any of it.

"You don't see me as a person, do you?" she said, near whisper. "I'm just a pawn on your board, aren't I? You move me around strategically, sacrificing me when you need, never thinking of the effect you might have –"

"This was your choice, Marina," Dumbledore said in a cold, firm voice. "This was your idea."

"My idea did not include you throwing me away whenever you have no use for me," she said icily, "or being attacked simply for being a Muggle in Albania, or having my hands look like they're dying on the ends of my arms because you decided that I'm the only one you could afford to lose in time-travel."

"That is not why –"

"Why are you here?" Marina interrupted. "What do you want?"

"I came to check on you," he said evenly. "After Remus' report on your condition, I was worried –"

Marina lay back down with a sharp exhale. "I don't want to talk to you," she said monotonously.

Dumbledore lingered for a moment before standing. "If you wish to talk, you may ask one of the Healers to send me an owl," he said in a calm voice. "I will be in touch." He turned to Riddle. "Tom," he nodded, before turning on his heel and walking away.

They both listened to Dumbledore's retreating footsteps.

"Are you alright?" Riddle asked once he was gone.

"No," Marina whispered, eyes fixed on the ceiling again.

"No," Riddle repeated quietly, giving a long breath as he looked back down at his book. "No, I'd expect not."

He didn't push her, he just sat in silence beside her. In that moment, Marina appreciated nothing more.

A/N: Thanks again for your helpful and supportive feedback! I can't express how amazing it is to have an audience like you, it makes me excited to post and motivated to write. Even my mistakes are pointed out very graciously, and I appreciate that as much as I do the compliments!
Thank you so much, it means the world.