It was cold and dark, and her footsteps echoed eerily on the stone floor even as she tried to step gently. She couldn't tell which room of the Manor she was in, but that was the last thing on her mind. He was close. She could feel it, she could sense his red eyes watching her from the indiscriminate blackness that haunted every edge and corner.

There was a small, hollow sound somewhere behind her like a stone falling down a deep well. Marina whipped around, but there was nothing there. Her eyes scanned the shadows, trying to keep her breath even as she searched for a sign of him. The darkness yielded nothing.

Suddenly his laugh came from behind her, high and cold, and she spun on her heel again only to see –

"Tom?" she asked, staring at him.

Tom was silent. Something about the light made him look different, its deep contrast casting him as if he had been painted in black and white. Half of his face was indistinguishable from the shadows behind him, the other half pale and striking with sharp edges and a harshness that made Marina frown uneasily.

"What's going on?" Marina asked shakily, stepping towards him. "Where –"

Tom raised his hand out towards her and she stilled, fearing the worst – but he wasn't pointing his wand at her. In his hand was a large, curved object coloured a distinctive yellowed ivory. One end shaved itself into a deadly point.

"Is that… a tooth?" she whispered. She moved again, seeing the jagged edge of its wider end and the blood splattered across it as if he had torn it out seconds prior. Somehow, she recognised it.

"A basilisk fang?" Marina frowned deeper, looking up at Tom. "Where did you get that?"

He just held it to her, eyes burning. Something felt wrong. Unease curled in her stomach and she looked between the fang and Tom's intense expression.

"I'm not taking that," she said slowly.

Tom stepped closer, and Marina retreated in kind.

"Stop it, you're scaring me," she said, voice trembling.

"Take it," he said intently.

"Stop it," she said, louder.

But Tom was unrelenting. "You know it has to be done," he said.

"Stop it!" Marina yelled.

But the fang was in her hand all the same, and she stared at it in horror.

"It was always going to be like this," said Tom. His voice came from everywhere, like he was speaking from every shadow that encircled them all at once.

"No, I –" Marina looked up to argue.

She froze. Her breath jammed in her throat and it felt like the floor had dropped from under her.

Her hand was on Tom's chest, and the fang was buried in his heart.

Marina leapt backwards, a strangled cry of horror coming from her throat and tears erupting from her eyes.

"You can't change it," said Tom. A dark stain billowed out around the fang, unmissable on the stark white of his shirt. "It has to be like this."

"No!" she shouted – but Tom was falling, and she was beside him, crying hard. Her hands dancing uselessly around the fang jutting from his chest, the fabric of his shirt already saturated.

Tom coughed and dark blood spilled from his lips and ran down his neck.

Too dark, Marina realised, not red… black.

She looked at her hands – they were stained black too. It wasn't blood.

Her heart dropped, her body going cold.

It was ink.

Her eyes were wide with horror as she raised them to Tom's face. He was staring back at her, ink trickling from his mouth, his nose, his eyes, pooling beneath him and spilling out in an ever-expanding blackness –

"Neither can live while the other survives," Tom whispered.

He fell limp.

Marina screamed. It was so deep and resonating that it couldn't possibly be coming from her. Could she make a sound like that? A sound that loud and raw and devastated? An aching sound that her body wasn't big enough to contain, and as it tore itself from deep in her chest it felt like it was ripping her in half –

"Marina! Wake up! Marina!"

Her eyes snapped open. She was bolt upright in Ginny's bed, still screaming as Mrs Weasley shook her hard.

The scream stuttered and was immediately replaced by sobs as she collapsed into Mrs Weasley's arms. Marina only came to notice the slow, reassuring circles that she was rubbing on her back much later when her cries started to slow.

"It's alright," Mrs Weasley was saying softly, "it was just a dream, you're safe, everything's alright…"

Marina knew from experience that Charlie was hovering beside them and that Mr Weasley was standing just outside the door with a cup of tea in hand, waiting for the right moment to come in. It was not the first time Marina had woken the house screaming in the middle of the night since coming back from Malfoy Manor.

"It's just a dream," soothed Mrs Weasley, stroking her hair. "It's gone now, it was just a bad dream."

Tom's last words echoed in her head, repeating again and again. With her face pressed tightly into Mrs Weasley's hug, Marina's expression was free to morph from one of fear and despair into one of doubt.

"Fred and George are coming to stay for the weekend," said Mrs Weasley, placing a fried egg next to the two sausages on Marina's plate. "They'll be here tomorrow afternoon."

Charlie sighed loudly and speared a sausage off Marina's plate. "Don't suppose I could head off back to Romania?" he said dryly.

Marina gave him a quizzical look, surprised at his response.

"They pester me non-stop when they get the chance," Charlie grumbled, noticing her expression. "Keep trying to convince me to source them some dragon scales for their nefarious purposes –"

"You are not to give them anything they ask for," Mrs Weasley said curtly.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Charlie said, scandalised. "Promote yet another industry that exploits dragon products? Nah, they can figure out something else for those Fire-Breathing Fancies."

"Fire-Breathing Fancies?" Mrs Weasley repeated sharply.

Charlie reddened, looking like he had said too much. "Just a hypothetical, mum," he said quickly.

Mrs Weasley's eyes narrowed, but she benevolently turned away. Charlie looked immensely relieved.

"The twins'll kill me if I let her know about their new stuff again," he muttered to Marina, "they still haven't forgiven me for the time I accidentally let slip that they'd bred Pygmie Puffs in the garden shed –"

Without warning, a sharp shiver wracked through Marina's body, jerking her hand hard enough to send her cup of tea flying across the kitchen. It hit the edge of the counter hard enough to break off its handle, the scalding contents spilling everywhere.

"I'm so sorry," she gasped, leaping to seize the cloth off the bench and dab furiously at the dripping tea. "I – I don't know why that keeps happening, I'm so –"

"Go sit down, dear," Mrs Weasley said, drawing her wand. "I'll take care of that."

"I'm sorry," Marina said again, picking up the two halves of the mug and looking at them despondently. It had been her favourite mug. "I don't know what came over me, I –"

"Marina," Mrs Weasley said, a bit more firmly. "Go sit down, we'll sort this." She gave Charlie a pointed look and he instantly jumped to attention, reaching for his sweater beside him to find his wand.

Mrs Weasley began muttering charms at the mess, and Marina fled at once, feeling mortified. She rounded the corner into the lounge and sat heavily on the couch, drawing the knitted quilt around her body as tightly as she could. The shivers came at random at least once every few hours, hard enough to make her breath hiss in through her teeth and her face crumple up.

She had lied, of course, she knew what caused them. If her mind strayed for even a fraction of a second towards Malfoy Manor, towards Voldemort, towards anything she had seen during those five days, it was as if her body tried to reject the memories manually, her mind pulling away from them so hard that her body became caught up in its efforts.

Marina stared blankly out of the window, watching the chickens peck aimlessly at the grass. It had been a long time – two weeks to be exact – since she'd been allowed outside. Mr and Mrs Weasley's paranoia that the house was being watched had increased tenfold since Tom had brought her back to the Burrow since he was yet to return to fully corroborate his story.

Two weeks of tension, of second-thoughts and doubts, of fear, and of nightmares.

"Here," came Charlie's voice.

Marina hadn't heard him approach, and started a bit. "Oh," she said, seeing the fresh steaming cup of tea in his hands, "right, thanks."

She took it, but didn't raise it to her lips. Instead she held it close to her chest like a candle at a vigil. Marina breathed deeply, trying to calm her still-racing heart.

"You're a lot jumpier now," Charlie said quietly.

"No shit," said Marina without missing a beat.

He gave her a long, sad look that she didn't like. She gave a curt sigh. "What are we doing today, then?"

Thankfully, Charlie allowed her to change the subject without comment. "We have to feed the ghoul at some point," he said, jerking his chin up towards the stairs. "And mum asked if we could change the sheets in Fred and George's room before they –"

Charlie was interrupted by a crisp snapping noise, and just like that, Tom was standing before them. Marina nearly flung the tea across the room again.

He was dressed in smart, black robes that were more formal and less flowing than those of the Death Eaters. The colour drew his skin out in contrast and made his hair seem even blacker. Marina forcefully avoided thinking about her nightmare and instead turned her attention to the barrage of emotions that had erupted in her chest at Tom's appearance, the most pressing of which was a bizarre and bubbling anger.

"Apologies for the delay," said Tom, smoothly placing his wand on the mantlepiece without being asked.

"Merlin's beard, Tom," exclaimed Charlie, replacing his own wand in his pocket, having drawn it in a panic. "You scared me half to –"

"TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE!"

The three of them froze. Mrs Weasley had appeared at the edge of the lounge holding soapy frying pan in one hand and fury written all over her face. A wave of gratuitous excitement rolled through Marina, like Mrs Weasley's obvious display of anger was some sort of outlet for her own inexplicable frustration.

"Two weeks," Mrs Weasley said dangerously, "two weeks and not a word! We've been worried sick, waiting for the Death Eaters to kick down the door –!"

"I have not had the chance to –" Tom began, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"You best hope that's the truth, young man!" Mrs Weasley continued loudly, brandishing the frying pan at him. "Marina locked up inside, the whole house on high alert – Arthur's already being watched like an augurey at work! We don't need anything else to worry about!"

The soapy pan waved in front of Tom's baffled face as Mrs Weasley gesticulated angrily. He seemed at a loss for words.

"Sit down," Mrs Weasley commanded, finally lowering the pan, "you'll have to wait until Arthur's home tonight before telling us about Dumbledore and the like. Merlin knows he's not going to want to miss it."

Tom looked like he might protest, and Mrs Weasley threateningly raised the pan again. "Sit down," she said, eyes narrowing.

Mrs Weasley watched as Tom did as he was told, slowly taking a seat in the faded yellow armchair opposite Marina who was fighting to keep a smirk off her face. Mrs Weasley wheeled around and returned to the kitchen where angry bustling and clanging began as she furiously continued to clean up from breakfast. There was an awkward pause.

"So," Marina said blandly, "how have you been?"

Both Tom and Charlie shot her simultaneous and equally dry looks.

"What?" she said, defensively. "Just trying to be sociable..."

"Yes, thank you for asking," Tom snapped with distinct sarcasm. Mrs Weasley's reception had obviously rubbed him the wrong way, and his fingers were restless with irritation on the arms of his chair. "May I remind you that I have spent the last two weeks painstakingly rebuilding credibility with the Death Eaters after a display of incredibly suspicious behaviour that would have resulted in my immediate execution were I anyone else?" He looked very bitter, and his voice had grown tense and sharp. "A task that has become vastly more challenging without the Dark Lord's presence and his constant asseveration of my validity, and required that I aid in torturing the snatchers who attempted to rebel - which they did only due to my influence, lest we forget."

The noises from the kitchen had gone silent and Marina's budding smirk was long gone, but Tom was still not finished.

"All of which was only necessary because I risked both my life and the success of a plan two years in the making to ensure that you weren't killed" – he waved a hand at Marina with no sign of pause of slowing down – "only to be met with suspicion and hostility."

"Tom," Charlie said quietly, "no one was trying to say that it's been easy, but –"

"It wasn't," Tom interrupted sharply. His eyes were cold as he turned to Marina and took in her pyjamas, the blanket around her shoulders, the mug in her hands. When he spoke next, his voice was rich with sarcasm. "Though I'm very sorry to hear that you've had to sit indoors for a bit."

Marina's skin burned, anger, embarrassment, and hurt erupting inside of her. She put down the mug as gently as she could, her hands shaking.

"That's not fair, Tom," Charlie said loudly, "it's not exactly been smooth flying for us –"

If Tom replied, Marina didn't hear it. She stood and beelined for the kitchen, ignoring Mrs Weasley calling her name as she shoved through the door and emerged onto the front yard and the cool morning sun. If Tom had smoothed things over with the Death Eaters, she didn't have to hide inside anymore, and she could only assume that someone would have stopped her from leaving if the threat really did linger.

Marina marched directionless across the dewy lawn, her feet plastered with wet blades of grass and the hem of her pyjama pants soaking wet within seconds. She didn't care. Anger was throbbing under her skin and her face felt hot. She pressed her cold fingers against her burning cheeks, knowing without seeing them that they were bright red. Wrapping her arms around herself against the November chill, she kept walking, knowing that she needed to wait for the anger to fade.

It didn't take long. The fresh morning was bright and cold, the sky was pale blue, tinged yellow and pink, the softly strewn clouds near the horizon stained a vivid orange by the rising sun. Birds were singing in the nearby trees, and Marina lifted herself to sit on the fence at the edge of the field to listen. She stayed there for a long time, enjoying the countryside and its stillness, the slow fade of the morning fog, and the gentle swell of the birdsong.

Soon, the sun was full in the sky and bathing her face in light, the warmth tingling on her skin as it battled with the chill from the air. Looking back towards the Burrow, a flicker of movement caught her eye near the side of the garden shed. Across the field, dew now glittering in the sunlight, a sound caught up with the movement – a dull thwack of an axe splitting wood. Someone was chopping firewood.

Marina hesitated, watching. On a normal day she'd have assumed it was Charlie who did things by hand much more than the average wizard, but even at a distance she could see that the figure had black hair, not red.

She hopped down off the fence and made her way towards him, the distance giving her plenty of time to think about what the hell she was going to say. Where should she start? With the last two weeks? With Malfoy Manor? With Voldemort? With her six-year absence? With Dumbledore? With Moody?

Her bare toes were white with cold by the time she drew close and she still had no plan. Upon closer inspection, Marina could see that Tom had changed into Muggle clothes and was now sporting a dark jumper that he'd rolled up to his elbows, exposing a hint of the white shirt underneath. His face was focused on his task as he placed another log on the chopping block, barely glancing at her as he pulled back the axe and swung it hard. The log split easily.

"So you do everything by hand, now?" Marina asked dryly. "Are you sure you're the same Tom Riddle I coaxed out of that diary?"

Tom kicked the two halves of the log towards the large pile of firewood beside him and readied another. "No," he said shortly, not looking at her. "I'm not."

He swung the axe again, much harder than was necessary. Marina eyed the huge pile of firewood, and the stacks of logs already prepped against the stone wall of the Burrow – there was no need for Tom to be adding any more. She turned her attention to his face, his intense expression and the hard line of his mouth, the light sheen of sweat on his brow from the exertion.

"Are you alright?" she asked slowly.

He wrenched the axe from where it was deeply embedded in the block, and shot her a look.

"Stupid question," Marina muttered, folding her arms tightly around her body. "I just mean…" she nodded pointedly towards him, "doesn't look like you're doing that for utilitarian reasons."

Tom scoffed before steadying another log. "Why would you think that?"

The axe landed hard and the poor log before him sprang in opposite directions.

"Come on, Tom," Marina said wryly, "ever since I met you, you've been an open book."

The corners of his mouth twitched. "You're not funny," he said after a moment, though his expression had lost some of its intensity.

"That was hilarious, and you know it," Marina said, sniggering at her own joke.

Tom gave her a long look that she couldn't decipher, only breaking it by turning to pick up another log. "Molly told me about… how you've been," he said slowly.

Marina stiffened. "What did she say?" she asked quickly.

With a dull thunk, another log was split in two. "She said that you're having trouble sleeping," he said, frowning.

"Ah well," Marina said loudly, "that's nothing compared to what you were talking about."

His expression instantly grew taut. "That's not what I –"

"No no," she said, looking down at her hands, frowning. "I get it, no stupid nightmare could compare with what you've been through. You've been out there actually in danger and I've been sitting around at home, so –"

"Marina," he said, tone so sharp that she instinctively looked up to meet his gaze. He had left the axe buried in the block and had stepped towards her, expression strangely intense. "That was a thoughtless thing for me to say. I'm sorry."

Marina stared, much longer than she meant to. Was he… was that… a genuine apology?

"Er… okay," she said slowly.

Tom nodded once, curt and decisive, and wrenched the axe from the block. Marina watched him as he resumed his task, her eye more critical than it had been before. She suddenly couldn't help but notice the differences in him, the ways that six years had changed his face, how his forearms were slightly darker on top than underneath, the ease with which he moved, how he was somehow even taller. The Tom she knew would never voluntarily wear Muggle clothes, or chop wood by hand for the catharsis of it, or apologise to her like that. He still looked like Tom, but Marina was struck with how little she knew the person before her, the years she'd been gone stretching out like it was a physical distance between them.

There was something else different, too subtle for her to pinpoint but enough for her to feel its presence. Her eyes raked across him as she desperately tried to single it out.

"What is it?" Tom asked curtly as he nudged a log into place with his foot.

Marina startled. "Nothing," she said, too quickly.

He gave her a sceptical look. "You're staring."

"I'm not staring," Marina said, looking away to demonstrate her point.

She practically heard him roll his eyes, and a bit of her embarrassment gave way to a swell of bizarre relief that at least in some ways he was still very much the same Tom. "You're hardly very convincing," he said monotonously.

"You're different," she blurted out.

Tom stopped, frozen in the moment right before he was about to swing the axe. "Of course I am," he said evenly. "It's been six years."

"I know, it's just…" Marina hesitated, "well, last time I saw you, I probably could have offered you free immortality, the Elder wand, Salazar Slytherin's autograph, and one free pass to sock Dumbledore in the face and you still probably wouldn't have touched an axe, let alone…" she gestured weakly at all of him. "And – no offense, but I'd never have expected an apology like that from you, either."

Tom's composed expression did not move, but it gained a strangely hard undertone. "I would have thought that you'd approve of the change," he said smoothly, his voice betrayed nothing of the hardness on his face. "I seem to recall receiving rather a lot of criticism from you for lacking in that regard."

"Sure," she said uncertainly, "it's just… weird."

His eyes flashed. "Perhaps it would not seem so strange to you had you been there these last few years."

Marina's irritation flared, but she ignored it. "I didn't choose to not be there," she said, frowning.

"And I didn't choose to change," he said immediately. "Though it appears that doing so has somehow compromised your trust in me."

Marina stared a moment, taken aback. "That's not why I don't trust you," she said without thinking.

His expression grew taut, and he swung the axe so hard into the log that one of its pieces flew close enough to Marina's feet that she scooted back a bit.

Marina was scrambling. "Wait, that's – that's not what I –"

"Is it so easy to break your trust in me, too?" Tom said angrily. "It was easy enough to break theirs," he jerked his head towards the Burrow, the sting in his voice palpable. "Will it always be this way? Does it matter how long or how hard I try, how much I change if all it takes is a single moment of suspicion before I am reduced back to the child that came out of that diary in their eyes?"

"That's not fair," Marina said sharply, "it's not like you just took a bit too long getting back from the store, Tom, you ran off to join the Death Eaters, what were they supposed to –"

"On Dumbledore's orders!" he said loudly, throwing the axe to the ground. "On the foolish assumption that they might have at least some faith in who I have become!"

"Don't you get that the reason they were so upset is because they do trust you?" Marina said passionately. "Six years ago, no one would have been that surprised if you'd run off to V –"

Tom's eyes grew alarmed, and Marina caught herself.

"– to You-Know-Who, because no one expected anything else. But now they know that you're better than that! Now, that would be breaking their trust!"

"If they were so sure that I knew better, then why would they not believe me once I returned?" he said forcefully, stepping closer. He was still alight with fervour but now he seemed less angry and more desperate, like he was seeking out the logic in her words so that he could safely believe them.

"They were hurt, Tom," said Marina, barely noticing that she stepped forward to meet him. "That's the downside to getting close to people, you know, they have the unprecedented ability to hurt you. And thinking that you'd abandoned them for the Death Eaters? After everything? That would've hurt a hell of a lot."

Tom moved forward again, slowly, almost brittle in his intensity. "And you?"

"What about me?" Marina asked, confused.

His voice fell dangerously quiet, though Marina had no trouble hearing him – they were standing very close now. "Where you hurt because you knew me to be better than that? Is that where your suspicion stemmed?" His eyes roamed her face like he was searching for the answer before she had the chance to offer it.

The wind fell from her sails. "I…"

"You said it yourself," Tom said, his voice somewhere between soft and intense. "you don't know me anymore."

Marina felt exposed, but she couldn't look away. "No," she admitted, near whisper. "No, I was just… disappointed."

Tom's jaw tensed. "In me."

He didn't say it like it was a question.

"Yes, but in myself, too." Marina didn't bother to give him enough time to ask, pre-empting the questioning look he gave her. "If you'd really joined them," she said, fighting to keep her voice from wavering, "everything would have been for nothing. I'd have failed everyone, Dumbledore, the Order, myself… you." She swallowed hard. Tom had gone very still. "I thought I had," she whispered. "When I saw you there. I thought…"

"I know what you thought," he said tensely.

There was a horrible pause. Marina scoured her brain for something else to say, desperate to dispel the tension between them. "That's what I actually meant before, by the way," she said quickly. "That was the reason I struggled to trust you, because I was really hurt and disappointed. It has nothing to do with how different you are."

"You seem very preoccupied with how different I am," he said, sounding amused. He gave her a measured look. "You're different, too, I suppose."

"How can I be different?" she blurted out, "it's only been like, two months for me."

"Yes well, rather a lot has happened, hasn't it," he said dryly.

Marina laughed, a low huff of agreement at this understatement. He was right of course, too much had happened. It was odd to think that it had changed her, that she was different too.

All at once, Marina became painfully aware of their proximity. She took a step back at once. "I'm sorry I didn't trust you," she said quickly, "but I hope that you can see why."

He nodded, eyes still on her. He hadn't moved.

"I'm going inside," said Marina, suddenly awkward, walking backwards towards the house. "I'll see you later."

She spun around and hurried towards the kitchen door. Behind her, she heard Tom pick up the axe and the thud of it splitting another log. Marina pressed her fingers to her cheeks again, and found them inexplicably hot once more.

A/N: To the person asking about this story being up on wattpad - it's on Ao3 under the same name if that suffices! :D

As for the vine compilation that my sister made! I can't post links on this site, but if you search for "Seven Devils Vine Comp (pt1)" you should get there :)

If you want more, I have more lmaoooo.

Also, for the playlist of random songs that make me think of this story, search spotify for "Seven Devils (marina)"

I am working on Tom's one atm! If you have song suggestions, feel free to let me know either review or pm :D

The title of this chapter came from the first song 'Goliath' which is both my fave song at the moment, and also my go-to for this story.

Thank you everyone!