Chapter 27: Malfoy Manor

Marina lay on her side on the cold floor, the bag over her head making it hard to breath. Something throbbed horribly in her right arm, and she wrinkled her nose to free some of the crusted, congealed blood clogged there in a vain effort to make breathing easier. Her wrists were painfully bound behind her back and her eyes were wide in the formless darkness of the bag. She wasn't alone. She could hear laboured breathing and low, muffled exclamations of pain of others around her – though no one dared speak to each other. The threat of the Death Eaters returning to resume their torture compelled them into silence without command.

It felt like an age since Yaxley had brought her to Malfoy Manor, though Marina had no idea how long exactly – pain had distorted her sense of time. She didn't know if they had been torturing her all night, or if it had only been an hour. Under the stuffy darkness of the bag Marina was none the wiser if the sun was bright in the sky or if it was the dead of night. Not that it mattered – any amount of time under the custody of Death Eaters was too long.

A door flung open and Marina jolted in fear.

"Up!" a familiar voice snapped. Bellatrix Lestrange. The woman had made many appearances during Marina's torture – heavy-lidded eyes, wild black hair, and a deep, gravelly voice that rasped when she grew agitated.

There was a flash of blue light and a sound like a whip cracking, and a man near Marina cried out in pain. Marina scrambled to her knees as quickly as she could without the use of her hands. Right as she started to stand, the whip-like crack rang out again and a sharp burst of pain erupted on the back of her calves – they had long since taken her Wardore, and she was as vulnerable as she could be.

"On your knees!" Bellatrix hissed.

Marina fell heavily into a kneel, her eyes watering reflexively at the sting. Other sounds began to permeate the room, footsteps gently clacking against the wooden floor. The room was filling up. Marina could only guess at the size of the crowd by the sounds of muttering, jeering, even some cold laughter that began to edge in around her.

She kept her head ducked, straining against her blindness under the bag to try to gage how far away they were, how many they were, anything that might help her. Her desperate scrutiny faltered as the crowd fell silent in one seamless swoop, and Marina's mind raced and strained to detect them again, feeling even more blind and exposed. Too late did Marina realise that her attention had been in the wrong place.

"Bellatrix," said a voice. High, cold, empty, Marina recognised its speaker without effort.

Voldemort had come.

Her knees suddenly felt weak beneath her and she wondered what would happen if she collapsed, used the fear to force herself steady and calm her stuttering breath. The overwhelming sense of danger had turned her skin to fire, the cold pressure of the wood stung beneath her and the bindings on her wrists became unbearable. Her face felt hot and she didn't know if it was because of her trapped breath or a flush of fear.

"What have you brought me?" Voldemort continued. His voice sent a horrible chill down Marina's spine. It was unlike anything she had ever heard, so completely devoid of warmth that something beyond her consciousness knew that it was wrong, knew that it was dangerous and subhuman and deadly the same way some hungry wild animal was deadly – inevitable and uncompromising.

The bag was torn from Marina's head and the adrenaline coursing through her turned the noise deafening. Marina blinked against the light which, all though dim, was uncomfortable to her dark-accustomed eyes. A fireplace with subdued flames cast long shadows across its black floor and drew the unsympathetic faces that encircled her even harsher and more austere. The tall stone walls and dark vaulted ceiling miles above told her that she should feel cold, but her skin was aflame with every sensation, prickling and aching against her very clothes like she was fevered.

She had delayed the inevitable long enough. Marina's eyes fell upon the figure who sat in the wooden throne before them, dominating the centre of the chamber. Every face was turned towards him, reverent, fearful, admiring, and in Bellatrix's case, adoring. Even the shadows seemed drawn to him.

Voldemort was draped in black robes and held a pale wand in his white hand that rested lazily on the arm of his throne. He was pale, so pale that his skin looked ghostly and unnatural, and even from far away she could see the red of his eyes and the snake-like pupils. Everything on his face looked wrong from the slits of his nose to his distorted, waxy skin. In his features there was nothing of Riddle's face, no familiarity or hint of resemblance, but there was something in his expression that she recognised. The cold, detached look in his eyes as if he were observing the world from behind thick glass, the sense of implicit superiority and arrogance – Marina was reminded distantly of when she had first seen Riddle, months and months ago when he had brought her into his diary to interrogate her. On Voldemort's twisted features, the expression rendered his face more terrible, more evil, more dangerous.

Bellatrix stepped in front of Marina across her view of Voldemort. Marina's head fell immediately, like a spell had been broken. She had gone very calm, like the terror she felt had erased all other feeling and sensation.

"This one," breathed Bellatrix from Marina's left, "we have had for weeks, My Lord. We have tried to reason with him, but he refuses to see the truth…" She flicked her wand and the same whip-crack split the room. A figure somewhere to Marina's left fell to the floor, moaning.

Marina chanced a fleeting look in that direction and saw two other bound and bloodied figures kneeling beside her, with the third now pushing himself back up onto his knees. Marina shivered with recognition – pitch-black hair and a handsome face, though now it was cut and bruised after the weeks he had spent in the Death Eater's custody. It was Healer Jin.

"He has been treating Muggle scum and Mudbloods alike," spat Bellatrix as the crowd leered and hissed at her words. Marina could see her circling Jin in her peripheral vision, and she strained her downturned eyes to keep track of what was happening.

"You have bestowed the gift of magical medicine upon such unworthy, vile bodies?" Voldemort asked, his voice unnaturally cold and deadly soft. "You would go against the natural order of the world? Pervert your sacred duty by allowing such filth under your care?"

Despite his hateful words, his inflection was almost elegant.

Jin raised his head and met Voldemort's gaze with an unimaginable composure and a set jaw. "It is my duty to help all who need it," he said with impressive clarity.

Bellatrix's wand hand slashed through the air in anger and Jin fell to the floor again, writhing. Marina had not seen another person under the Cruciatus curse before and she watched in horror as Jin's twitching body bent and twisted under the pain. She could not look away, frozen as the torture went on and on, and a strangled scream punctured the air as it gurgled from Jin's throat and then –

"Enough," said Voldemort calmly.

Bellatrix immediately let the curse fall, and Jin collapsed breathing heavily on the floor. Marina could not stop herself from looking over to him, eyes wide in both horror and fear. She begged her knees to stop trembling.

"Do you not see," Voldemort continued, as if nothing had happened, "your skills and your potential must be immense... and yet you squander them on the lowest most vile forms of life, so ignorant and primitive that they could not begin to understand what you have done..."

But Jin was not listening. He had finally caught sight of Marina kneeling at the other end of their line-up. His expression went from a gritted exhaustion to blank surprise in an instant – he was clearly as taken aback to see her as she was to see him.

His moment of distraction left a ringing silence after Voldemort's words, and Marina felt that pervasive feeling of danger saturate the room in its wake.

"You are right, Bellatrix," said Voldemort quietly, "he will not see reason. Such a waste..."

Voldemort's pale hand twitched, his bone-white wand jerking forward.

"Avada Kedavra."

A flash of blinding green light engulfed the room and was gone before Marina even blinked – Healer Jin fell to the floor with a thump, dead.

Marina's skin was crawling with heat, fear clawed at her heart. She had never seen death before. A silence both dull and ringing blocked out her ears as she stared in muted horror - Jin's corpse was utterly still, an unnatural stillness that drew up a creeping wrongness the longer she looked. He did not breath or blink, he did not twitch or tense, his face was frozen in a blank mask.

"And what is this?" Voldemort's voice sliced through Marina and she was forced back to the present with a gasp.

The sounds of the room crashed back into her and Marina realised with a sickening horror that reckless sobs were ripping from her chest, loud and ragged breaths that were making her entire form shake as her body rebelled against her. She mentally screamed at herself to stop, but it was too late. She had drawn his attention.

"A Muggle, my Lord," Bellatrix said, approaching from behind the line and tracing her wand across Marina's throat.

"A Muggle," Voldemort repeated, sounding amused.

Marina could do nothing except listen over the sound of her own rasping hyperventilation, her eyes began to water as she stared hard at the floor, not daring to look up at Voldemort.

"Yaxley found her in Diagon Alley," Bellatrix continued, wand pressing harder against Marina's throat at the very thought of it.

"Is that so?" Voldemort said, the amusement immediately gone. "A Muggle who managed to make its way into the magical world..."

"That is not all, my Lord," Yaxley's deep voice resounded from somewhere in the crowd. Marina saw him step forward in her peripheral vision, but she kept her gaze fixed downwards. "She claims to have worked there, she's been living among us for years, it seems."

"Silence, Yaxley," Voldemort said coldly, "if I had wished for your input, I would have summoned you."

"Yes, my Lord," Yaxley said quickly, stepping back.

"Though... what you propose is troubling, indeed," said Voldemort, slowly, his attention returning to Marina. "Is this true?" he demanded.

Marina could not speak, paralysed by panic.

"Look at me," said Voldemort coldly.

She did not.

Voldemort's wand hand twitched again and Marina felt a hot sting burst on her right brow and her head jerked to the side with the force of the cut. Blood immediately flowed down from the cut and she blinked as it trickled into her eye.

"I said, look at me," Voldemort hissed.

Marina shakily raised her head, and his red eyes burned into hers from his inhuman face. For all her efforts to avoid his gaze, she was suddenly unable to look away.

"The Dark Lord asked you a question," leered Bellatrix, wand still pressed against Marina's throat. "Answer it!"

Marina's voice would not come at first, and she swallowed hard. "Yes," she whispered.

Voldemort turned to his Death Eaters with a strangely triumphant expression. "Now you see," he said almost gleefully, "the Muggles wish to invade us, to prey on our carelessness, to feed on our power since they have none of their own... we must not allow such vermin to creep its way into our world."

His cold gaze fell back upon her, and Marina realised all at once that he was going to kill her. Marina's stomach dropped. She was going to die here, at Voldemort's hand, in a cold room of strangers on the other side of the planet from her home, far away from her own time and everyone she ever knew. The weight of it fell upon her like a tide of water, crushing down on her and in on all sides. Her breath left her chest and tears erupted from her eyes as she stared back at Voldemort's waxen, unnatural face.

"Crucio," said Voldemort, raising his wand.

It began again, the eruption of pain, the unimaginable totality of it as it consumed her and bled out her edges until she was nothing but the agony. Her mouth was thick with blood when he finally released her, the thudding sting on her tongue telling her she'd bitten it hard.

'It was for nothing, then,' she thought, feeling the cold floor press against her cheek as she lay broken before Voldemort. 'Everything was for nothing.'

Her exhausted sobs were silenced and stilled in an instant – with a low, strange rasping sound of a huge, scaled body slithering across the polished wooden floor, a huge snake had appeared in Marina's line of sight. She stared, frozen in fear, at snake's thick body as it made its way past her from the back of the room.

The great snake let out a resonating hiss that filled the whole room and Marina distantly recognised the sound from her long-passed attempts to learn Parseltongue – either Nagini was scared, or hungry, and she didn't think that the snake had much cause to be scared.

"Ah, Nagini," Voldemort said, sounding distantly pleased. "Indeed, it must be near time for your next meal..."

Marina looked up tiredly and met the heartless eyes of Voldemort's last Horcrux. Nagini had circled around and was approaching her with a single-mindedness that made Marina push herself up in fear, exhaustedly trying to shuffle back away from the snake to no avail. Marina did the only thing she could think to do – she opened her mouth and said the only thing she could remember in Parseltongue.

'I'm scared.'

It didn't sound completely right, but Nagini froze in place, rearing back a bit like she was surprised. The reaction was nothing compared to Voldemort's. Marina did not hear him cast the curse before she was thrown into the torture – worse than last time, like Voldemort's fury and confusion at her exhibition was being channelled into the curse. She barely noticed that he had let the curse fall, so blinded had she been by the pain.

"How can this be?" Voldemort hissed, on his feet and standing above her. "How did you come by that tongue?"

His rage radiated off him in waves, and from the floor Marina's bleary eyes made out the cowering forms of the Death Eaters whose confidence and bravado had vanished at the sight of Voldemort's wrath. Marina could not focus, could not gather herself to answer before he was raising his wand to curse her again when –

"I believe I might be able to answer that, my Lord."

The voice came from behind Voldemort's throne, a figure standing along the wall with the other Death Eaters. The figure's hood was down, and he wore no mask, but even if his face had been concealed, Marina would have recognised the speaker immediately all the same. The fear of Nagini, the pain from the Cruciatus curse, the exhausted despair at facing her own death – everything turned to smoke and drifted away.

Tom stood before them, dressed in the same black robes as the other Death Eaters. His face had changed since Marina had last seen him, his features had retained their angular elegance but he looked more filled out and settled than his teenage self. His black hair was carefully styled to the side and his eyes looked just as black in the dim light of the room, the flickering fireplace casting half his face into shadow.

"What is the meaning of this, Tom?" whispered Voldemort with rage in his voice. His wand was still aloft, pointed down at Marina in a splayed hand.

Tom considered Voldemort a moment before looking down at Marina. Her eyes had not left Tom's face, his terrible beauty having sent her into a state of absolute hopelessness. It could not be him, he could not be there behind Voldemort, dressed as a Death Eater, giving her that cold, composed look.

"I know this Muggle, my Lord," Tom said quietly.

Voldemort looked at him a moment, and then wheeled around to the room of Death Eaters who were watching the scene unfold before them in silent rapture.

"Out," he whispered, face twisted in fury.

The Death Eaters moved as if he had roared the command – the remaining two prisoners who had been silently cowering beside Marina were heavily seized by magical bounds and dragged from the room, and every Death Eater scattered. Even Nagini had vanished, slithering away into the darkness. Within seconds they had emptied from the room, all except Tom and Bellatrix.

"And you, Bellatrix," Voldemort said, not looking her way.

"But – my Lord –"

"Out!" he screamed, voice saturated with anger.

Bellatrix fled.

Voldemort rounded on Tom, who met his furious gaze with calm composition. "Explain yourself," Voldemort hissed.

"This is the Muggle who found the Diary, my Lord," Tom said very casually, "it is her soul which I consumed to regain my present form. It is possible that perhaps in the process, she gained some knowledge from me... hence the Parseltongue." Tom's eyes fell upon Marina's face again, his brow was creased like he was considering a mildly difficult crossword puzzle.

"How can this be?" said Voldemort immediately, and Marina could hear in his voice the narrowing of his eyes. "You had told me that you did not know who had claimed the diary, that it was found within Borgin and Burkes."

"It was," Tom nodded, not looking fazed. "I was always unsure as to how a Muggle came by it, though perhaps Yaxley's claim that she has been working in Diagon Alley resolves that mystery."

"You did not ask?" Voldemort said, voice cold with suspicion.

Tom's lips curved in a cold smirk. "I must confess, my Lord, when I discovered that the diary had been claimed by a Muggle of all things, I did not think it necessary to... hold back. I wasted no time in beginning the consumption, asking such questions was hardly necessary – a Muggle had no way of defending herself, she had no idea what she had picked up."

Marina's mind was racing. Half of what Tom was saying were complete lies. She had told Tom the lie about finding his diary in Borgin and Burkes when they had first begun speaking, though he knew well that the story was false now. Not to mention his explanation for the Parseltongue. She stared at him, a whirlwind of emotions in her chest. To see him there, calmly speaking with Voldemort with his face cold and reserved was like a torture of its own. It was as if she were being taunted, her failures being thrown in her face one by one.

"How has she survived?" Voldemort was demanding, returning his attention to Marina on the floor before him. "If you consumed her soul, she should be dead."

"I agree," Tom's brow creased into a frown again. "That mystery remains to be solved..."

"This Muggle appears to be just as surprised to see you, Tom," Voldemort said with a cruel mirth, finally noticing Marina's stricken expression. "I wonder..."

Voldemort swooped down and seized Marina's face in his hand, his long, bone-white fingers clutching her face painfully. He raised his wand to the side of her head and Marina realised at the last second what was coming.

"Legilimens," crooned Voldemort.

Marina's head split open, every thought scattered like the fragments of a shattered glass dropped on the ground. The relentless foreign presence of Voldemort within her mind sent waves of nauseating disorientation crashing through her, but a single memory shone through. Vaguely, distantly, ever so faintly, she remembered a book she had read months prior, a calm evening with Riddle above Tomes and Scrolls reading, the first night she had really managed to talk to him. He had picked a book on 20th century wizarding history, and she had picked...

'The key to true Occlumency is to provide a layer of thought and emotion that would appear legitimate to the invading Legilimens. Closing one's mind completely leaves gaps and blanks that will draw the attention of the aggressor and give notice that you are attempting to conceal something, allowing the Legilimens to press further. Instead, the skilled Occlumens allows the Legilimens the illusion that they are seeing one's true, unfiltered thoughts and feelings.'

Marina had no training, no idea or experience of Occlumency, but she did know one thing – in that moment she was certainly capable of providing a lot of layers of emotion. With the resounding sensation of resignation, Marina allowed the full crushing weight of her feelings saturate her; the horror and disbelief of the things she had seen during the war, the fear of Voldemort, the deep resonating dread of her own death at his hands, and most of all, the utter despair of seeing Tom, anger and confusion at his presence there, and the impossibility of it all, the unfairness, the betrayal –

All at once, Voldemort was gone and Marina was left gasping, gathering her presence of mind. A sound was echoing around the room, unnerving and bewildering - laughter. Voldemort was laughing, cold and high.

"She feels you have betrayed her," Voldemort said, voice alight with cruel delight. "The arrogance... the ignorance... Muggles never cease to amaze me with their small, unseeing minds..." Voldemort pushed Marina's face up with his bare foot, smiling at her just as coldly as he had laughed. "Were you so enraptured with his pretence that even now in the face of his true motives, you still wish to believe it?"

Voldemort laughed again, letting Marina's face fall. He considered her, his wand motionless in his poised hand. "But this does not answer the question of how she survived," Voldemort said, voice colder.

"That I cannot answer, my Lord," said Tom, taking a step towards them with his hands clasped tidily behind his back. "The last time I saw her, I confess I had assumed her dead myself." He looked straight at Marina, and she felt her stomach twist. Completely unresponsive to her obvious despair and free-flowing tears, he returned his attention to Voldemort.

"She must die," Voldemort said immediately. "Muggle or not, no one must know, no one can know..." Voldemort's eyes were on Tom's features, something close to fear at the edge of his expression.

Marina's true history and Tom's lies had been drowned out in her mind by her overload of emotion, and Voldemort was clearly too arrogant and prejudiced to consider that a Muggle might be capable of pulling any sort of deception over him - but Marina was beginning to understand. Was it self-preservation? Was Tom afraid that if Voldemort knew that they had grown to be something close to friends, that he would be killed on the spot for having indulged in such weakness?

It didn't seem to matter anymore. Marina had spent months pouring and pondering over Tom's potential motivations for what he did, and now here he was at Voldemort's side, trying to keep his favour, watching Marina's torture with cool passivity.

Marina found her voice. "Dumbledore was right about you," she whispered.

Both Voldemort and Tom looked down at her, and in that moment, even Marina could not tell at which one she had directed her words.

"Dumbledore?" Voldemort said sharply. "How –"

The door flung open and a Death Eater quickly entered. "My Lord –"

Voldemort screamed in rage again, and his wand struck forward. The Death Eater collapsed immediately.

"How dare you interrupt me!" Voldemort hissed, "what insolence –"

"My Lord," gasped the Death Eater, "there is news – we have found something –"

Voldemort's countenance immediately shifted. "Speak," he commanded, lowering his wand.

"Austria, my Lord," said the Death Eater weakly.

"Austria," breathed Voldemort, "I see..."

Voldemort's attention returned to Marina as if he had forgotten she was there, and he gave her a look of deep disdain. "I wish to question this Muggle further," he said coldly. "Take her to the dungeon."

Immediately, the Death Eater who had entered drew his wand and Marina felt a sharp tug on the bindings that still held her wrists behind her back as she was yanked across the floor by an invisible force. As she was pulled towards the Death Eater's outstretched wand, she could hear Voldemort speaking to Tom.

"I will be gone for a time, Tom, you must keep watch here."

"Yes, my Lord."

"And make sure that Bellatrix does not become carried away with the Muggle, I wish her mind to be intact when I return..."

"Yes, my Lord."

Marina caught a final glance of them as she was dragged away, Voldemort's warped, pale features next to Tom's sharp beautiful face, standing together in the shadowy room like a lieutenant and his master. Suddenly, Tom looked over at her – their eyes met for a single moment, and gravity seemed to vanish as heat burned on Marina's face and she searched him for something, anything – but the door slammed shut behind her, and Tom was gone.

A/N: Y'ALL IT'S BEEN A TIME. Okay so my laptop officially died SO I am in the process of buying a new one... but in the mean time, writing means that I either stay late at my office, or skimp on working on my thesis to write instead. This will slow me down until I get the new laptop, but THIS STORY IS NOT ABANDONED. I am very very sorry for the huge delay in updates, I swear to you that it was not intentional or because I'm giving up on the story lol.

Thanks as always for the lovely comments and everything! I ask that you just be a bit patient until I sort the new laptop, at which point I can return to the regular update schedule.

Thank you very much :)