Chapter 31: The Last Devil

Marina staunchly avoided Tom for the rest of the day, unable to avoid the fact that something about him made her feel strangely uncomfortable. She threw herself into her tasks with such fervour that the ghoul in the attic was munching on fresh rat carcasses and the beds in the twins' room were changed before Charlie even got around to finding her to help. When she passed the stairs, she could hear Tom downstairs talking softly with Mrs Weasley, and had decided on the spot that they might as well do all the bedrooms whilst they were at it. Charlie – who was less enthusiastic about the plan – spent the next three hours feigning a very dramatic and theatrical sullenness as they went from room to room hauling fresh sheets and baskets of old ones, but Marina was just glad to have something to keep her mind occupied by something other than their guest.

She opted to bypass lunch, seizing an apple instead and escaping into the garden to pull carrots for their dinner – only to just so happen to notice that the herb garden was looking a bit shabby. Marina managed to sink an additional two hours into weeding and tidying it until Charlie came out and began teasing her mercilessly for trying to brush all the dirt from the grout between the bricks of the path. However, Tom's lingering presence meant that the ground floor was still struck out-of-bounds, so Marina furiously scrubbed the dirt from her nails in the kitchen sink, seized a huge basket of clean clothes from the laundry, and lugged it upstairs at a record pace.

Too soon did the sky fall dark, and the kitchen door banged shut announcing Mr Weasley's return home. Marina shot Charlie a surprised look where he was helping her sort and fold the laundry on the floor of her temporary bedroom.

"Is your dad home on time?" she asked in disbelief.

Charlie glanced at his watch, frowning. "Yeah he is – Merlin, I can't remember the last time dad was actually here for dinner."

"Just my luck," she grumbled, aggressively folding the shirt on her lap. Mr Weasley's arrival meant only one thing – her hiding had been finally forced to come to an end.

Charlie peered at her suspiciously. "What's your problem with Tom?"

"I don't have a problem," Marina replied, managing to keep nearly all the defensiveness from her voice.

Though evidently not all of it – Charlie raised an eyebrow and Marina had to avoid his gaze as she stood and brushed off her pants, putting on a very good show of nonchalance. "Let's go then," she said bracingly.

Charlie followed her downstairs where they found Mr and Mrs Weasley already sitting with Tom in the lounge. Mr Weasley's work robes were crumpled and his hat had been knocked on an angle, but he looked uncharacteristically lively for having just returned from work, with alert eyes and an intent lean. Mrs Weasley was sitting straight-backed and tight-lipped on the settee beside the fireplace, her creased brow betraying the gravity of their conversation, and Tom was positioned in the same yellow chair that he had taken that morning. One of his long legs was crossed over the other and he had propped an elbow beside him to let his hand linger thoughtfully beside his face, his other hand draped lazily down the arm of the chair. His demeanour only accentuated the naturally regal quality of his features, the fine angles, dark blue eyes, and high cheekbones over which the light from the fireplace danced elegantly. He looked like he was sitting on a throne, not a tatty armchair.

Don't stare, Marina thought suddenly, and she wrenched her eyes off Tom to fix them safely on the Weasleys.

"Not starting without us, are you?" Charlie asked jauntily, sitting next to his father.

"No, just catching up," Mrs Weasley said, lips fluttering into a light smile that didn't quite reach her eyes.

Marina just sank onto the couch opposite Tom and tried to compose her expression into whatever a regular-looking, non-suspicious, I-haven't-been-avoiding-you-all-day face looked like. By the way that Tom glanced at her, her efforts were less than successful.

Tom let a breath out through his nose and seemed to brace himself. "I suppose that I should begin," he said softly. "You recall that two years ago, Dumbledore and I left for Greece, though we were gone much longer than anticipated," he tilted his head towards Mr and Mrs Weasley who nodded back in affirmation. "Our purpose in going there was to search for a particular man…" Tom hesitated, looking almost reluctant to elaborate. "His name was once Drákavlos of Kyrenaika, though he is better known by his epithet… Herpo the Foul."

Marina felt her brows rise in shock, understanding the reason for their search at once thanks to the extensive amount of time that she had spent on the Harry Potter Wikipedia page over the last decade. In contrast, the Weasleys seemed more confused than surprised – though Marina supposed that 'history of Horcruxes' wasn't exactly the sort of thing that Professor Binns would cover in class.

"Herpo the Foul? Didn't he invent the Cruciatus curse?" Charlie asked, looking distasteful.

"He invented a lot of evil curses, my boy," said Mr Weasley darkly. "Most of which are still giving us trouble today. But Herpo lived thousands of years ago," he frowned. "More time travel?"

"No," Tom said quietly. "He's rumoured to still be alive. He created the first Horcrux."

The Weasleys' expressions caught up to Marina's in an instant.

"He's still alive after that long?" Mrs Weasley asked, aghast. "That would make him nearly three thousand years old!"

Tom nodded. "Dumbledore suspected that being their inventor, Herpo possesses knowledge about Horcruxes that could prove invaluable. We began our search in the Greek province of Cyrene where he was born, and then tracked him to Cantabria in northern Spain without success. One last lead took us as far as Vilnius, in Lithuania – but we found nothing but old stories. If he really is still alive, he is well hidden, and does not wish to be found easily."

"Why did you want to meet him?" Marina asked, frowning. "What could he know that would make Dumbledore want to find him so badly?"

Tom gave her an inscrutable look. "Each Horcrux that the Dark Lord made is tied to a particular death," he said softly. "A murder that tore a fragment of his soul from his body, a fragment that I can now reclaim by sheer proximity." He hesitated, his eyes falling on the dancing flames in the fireplace. "But there remains a piece that I cannot reclaim no matter how close I come, the one piece that is not tied to any death."

Something clicked into place in Marina's head. "The piece still in You-Know-Who," she finished slowly. Her mind began racing as it picked at the problem, turning it over again and again like a puzzle.

Tom nodded. "Dumbledore had hoped that Herpo's knowledge of Horcrux magic would give us some insight into how to draw that piece from the Dark Lord's body."

"But you didn't find him," Marina said apprehensively.

"No," he replied quietly. "Though we tried many times. In Herpo's absence, we were forced to come up with another plan – to consult the only other person with extensive knowledge of Horcruxes."

"What – You-Know-Who?" Charlie interrupted. "Just walk up to him and ask how to steal the soul out of his body? I'm sure that'll go down a treat."

"I assure you, the plan was to be somewhat more subtle than that," Tom said dryly.

"But the Death Eaters brought you to him from Bill and Fleur's wedding, with us and Harry and everyone else – didn't he suspect you?" Mrs Weasley asked, sounding torn between concern and disapproval.

Tom smirked, a curl in his lips that greatly intensified his regal appearance. "It was fairly easy to convince him that I was deceiving you all for the purposes of gathering information," he said, leaning back in his chair with a slow confidence, "as I have mentioned before, the Dark Lord does not believe that I am capable of straying too far from his own character."

"Which reminds me," Mr Weasley said firmly, "you still haven't told us what you let slip to You-Know-Who to curry his favour."

"I said a great deal without divulging very much at all," Tom remarked, looking imperturbable. "You must remember that whilst the Dark Lord considered Dumbledore his one true threat in battle, he also thought him remarkably ignorant, and vastly inferior to himself."

"He thought Dumbledore was ignorant?" Charlie scoffed.

"Dumbledore was ignorant," Marina muttered impulsively. "Mostly of his own shortcomings, but he managed to squeeze child psychology and interpersonal respect onto that list, too."

There was a loaded silence, and Marina was forcefully reminded that criticising Dumbledore would be ill-received in the Weasley household.

"But I'm guessing that You-Know-Who was meaning something else," she said quickly, looking to Tom.

"Yes," said Tom, his dark eyes alight with amusement as he watched her avoid the somewhat scandalised looks of the Weasleys. "The Dark Lord has always regarded Dumbledore's preoccupation with love to be his greatest and most ridiculous weakness. My alibi abused this perception; I told him that I had sought out Dumbledore and claimed that I was some sort of echo of the past, a figment of some ancient magic that I did not understand. I claimed that whilst Dumbledore had been suspicious of me at first, he had quickly become intent on… rehabilitating me." Tom paused, a minute crease appearing between his brows. "The Dark Lord thought this very typical of Dumbledore," he said quietly, before turning thoughtful again. "And – superficially, at least – this fiction was not so far from the truth. I did not struggle to provide him with memories that seemed to support my narrative."

"What did you tell him about the Order?" Mrs Weasley asked anxiously.

"I said little of any real consequence," Tom said smoothly. "Descriptions of people's character, benign stories from mine and Dumbledore's travels, that sort of thing. When real intel was required, I disclosed only minor plans – for example, your idea with the Knight Bus…"

Marina frowned in confusion but Mr Weasley scoffed lightly.

"Explains why Dolohov started showing up on all the routes all of a sudden," he muttered, "most of us still can't get on it." He sighed heavily. "No matter, I suppose… it wasn't an essential move on our part."

"I should be able to return fairly regularly to discuss things in more detail," said Tom very casually, "the Death Eaters are under the impression that I am conducting private missions for the Dark Lord. They will not question my absence, so long as I am not gone for too long."

"Hold on," Marina frowned, "you haven't said if it's worked or not."

"If what has worked?" Tom asked smoothly, his gaze meeting hers at once.

"The Horcrux magic thing," she said impatiently, "or – I mean – how to get the piece of soul from You-Know-Who."

There was a heavy pause before Tom spoke again, one that set unease curling in Marina's stomach in a horribly familiar way – what did it remind her of? It was right on the edge of her mind, just out of reach –

"Not yet," said Tom quietly.

Before Marina could reply, he had already turned back to the Weasleys. "Moreover, the Dark Lord has grown paranoid of what might occur if I draw close to Nagini after my reaction the first time I did so. He has forbidden me from going near her, which has proven problematic in my attempts to reclaim –"

"Wait, wait," Marina said loudly, holding up her hands.

Tom gave her a frustrated look, but it was tinged with something else that she couldn't pinpoint, something that only worsened the unease growing inside of her.

"So you haven't been able to learn how to get the soul from You-Know-Who?" she asked slowly.

Tom's jaw tensed, and his look of reluctance returned. "No," he said shortly.

"And you couldn't find Herpo to ask him, either."

He laced his hands together, lips going tight. "No."

"So," Marina said, feeling her heart speed up a bit, "how are you going to get that piece? What's the plan?"

"Marina," Mrs Weasley said quietly, "it'll be alright, don't get yourself worked –"

"Is there a plan?" Marina interrupted a little frantically, eyes fixed on Tom's face. "What are you going to do?"

Tom sighed once, short and sharp. "We have to focus on reclaiming the last Horcruxes. Over time, I am confident that I can handle Nagini, but as for Hufflepuff's cup –"

"Tom," Marina said, heart racing, "answer me."

But he only looked at her, some mix of tension and resignation and frustration all battling on his face like he wanted her to know the answer without having to say it out loud.

And all at once, she did.

Tom lying in a pool of ink, a fang jutting from his chest, her hands stained black, that same unease flooding her body, and Tom's lips opening slowly –

"Neither can live whilst the other survives."

"Marina."

He knocked again, soft and insistent. Marina ignored it, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them.

"Marina, open the door."

"You're the fancy wizard," she said, turning her face into her shoulder. "Open it yourself."

She heard him sigh again, and then there was the faint trill of magic before the lock clicked as it unlatched. Ginny's bedroom door swung open and Tom stepped inside, stowing away his wand as he assessed her perched on the end of the bed, her eyes unmistakeably red and swollen. She'd escaped back upstairs the moment she could, having barely paid attention to the rest of the conversation.

Tom folded his arms, leaning against the wall as his expression turned hard.

"You must know that it's not exactly my first choice of plans," he said quietly, "but the Dark Lord will remain tied to this world whilst part of his soul continues on outside of his body."

"You can't just die," Marina said angrily, "that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard."

Tom was silent a moment, and then he dropped his eyes. "People die in wars, Marina," he said in a low voice.

"Isn't your soul separate from his now?" she asked desperately. "You said – he can't see into your mind like he can with Nagini – and you don't feel anything when you're near him! So surely that means –"

"That is not a chance we can take," Tom said at once, gaze fixed on the floor.

Marina narrowed her eyes. "You spent too much time with Dumbledore," she said coolly, "it's just like him to start throwing peoples' lives around just in case."

Tom pursed his lips. "You agreed to this," he said, giving her a guarded look, "when you first met with Dumbledore in the hospital wing. You agreed that if you were met with failure, I should be destroyed."

Marina gaped, her heart dropping. "I – that was – he told you about that?"

Tom only looked on, eyes reserved. Marina turned away, a rush of turbulent emotions roiling in her chest. She'd always known that making that stupid deal with Dumbledore would end up biting her in the ass. "I agreed that if you were unwilling to go along with us, if you couldn't reclaim the Horcruxes, that he'd have to do things his way," she said, aggravated. "This isn't anything close to what I agreed to!"

Tom shook his head, a minute movement that felt strangely resigned. "It doesn't matter," he said quietly.

"It does matter!" Marina leapt to her feet. "We aren't going through all of this just to fucking kill you, Tom!"

"If there was another way, don't you think I would have found it by now?" he snapped, his composure cracking. "Right now, all I can do is find the last Horcruxes so that you can get rid of them all in one tidy package," he finished bitterly.

Marina stared at him, heat rolling across her face. She was so filled with emotion that she couldn't move. "We're going to Greece," she whispered.

Tom's gaze snapped to her. "What?"

"You and me, we're going to Greece or whatever," she said loudly. "We're finding this Herpo fucker, this is ridiculous."

It was Tom's turn to stare – he looking halfway stunned. "You want to look for him?" he said finally, filled with scepticism, "a man neither I nor Dumbledore could find?"

Marina glared back. "I don't care that you couldn't find him, we'll find him this time."

"How?" Tom asked, raising a single dark brow.

Marina started pacing. "The places you mentioned downstairs, Spain and the other one –"

"Lithuania," he interjected smoothly, watching her.

"– sure, how did you end up there? What were you following?"

"Herpo was the first person to discover how to breed basilisks," said Tom as he rested his head on the wall behind him, accentuating the sharp line of his jaw. "He kept the knowledge secret for some centuries, so we traced early stories of basilisk attacks and sightings. He was nearly always behind them."

Marina nodded, mind whirring. "Did you ever look for his Horcrux?"

Tom paused. "How would we –"

She stopped pacing, giving him an incredulous look. "Tom, being around a Horcrux is like having solid depression force-fed down your throat whilst someone slowly stones you to death," she said dryly, "it's bound to leave an impact, wherever it is. If Herpo is still alive then his Horcrux has to be somewhere, and if we find it, maybe it can lead us to him."

"Dumbledore thought that it was lost," Tom murmured, his eyes roamed animatedly. "Even to Herpo."

Marina shot him a questioning look.

"To live so long would drive one insane," Tom said, catching her expression, "Dumbledore believed that if Herpo had been able to do so, he would have long destroyed his own Horcrux and welcomed death."

"Right, so we start with that," Marina said decidedly.

Tom assessed her thoughtfully. "If his Horcrux is that old, it probably would have developed a rather intense influence," he said slowly.

"So what's the most miserable place in the wizarding world?" Marina wondered out loud.

The answer occurred to both of them at the same time. They stared at one another.

"You don't think it's that simple?" said Marina, a bit dumbfounded.

"I don't know," Tom whispered, "perhaps it is."

"You said something about Azkaban once, didn't you?" Marina said, frowning. "I remember – in Dumbledore's office, with Moody –"

Tom gave her a blank look, and she gestured her hands dramatically. "I don't know his name, some dude who found the island before it was a prison, and something about Dementors –"

"Ekrizdis," Tom interrupted, "He hid there for years torturing people in secret – it's unclear if the Dementors were already on the island, or if they spawned there due to his… experiments." He appraised her, looking like he was on the brink of being impressed. "You remember that?"

"Don't give me too much credit," Marina smirked, "For me that was only like a few weeks ago. Anyway, it makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe Herpo hid his Horcrux there centuries ago, and when Ekrizdis showed up, it corrupted him and made him do all that messed up stuff!"

"We should actually search the place before we start coming up with a full narrative," Tom said dryly, but the blue of his eyes had come alive with vivacity and Marina knew that her idea had sparked something in him.

"So we're going to Azkaban, then?" Marina asked, sitting back down on her bed with a thump as she realised what that would really entail. Disquiet bubbled in her heart as she remembered the last time that she'd been around Dementors.

Tom frowned. "I should go alone. The Dementors won't bother me, they're under the control of the Death Eaters. I'll search the island and –"

"Don't be an idiot," Marina interrupted immediately, "There's no way you're going to that place alone. I'll get a disguise or something, but I'm coming with you."

Tom gave her a deadpan look. "I certainly did not miss the freedom with which you insult me these last few years."

"Just the rest of me, then," Marina grinned gaudily.

Tom rolled his eyes and pushed off the wall. "I should get back," he said, before giving her a levelled look. "Can you be ready to go tomorrow?"

"You want to start tomorrow?" she asked, a bit surprised.

He elegantly raised an eyebrow. "Do you have other plans?"

Marina shrugged. "Oh you know," she said, feigning great disinterest, "I thought I might meander outside to check if the celery is ready to pick, maybe give the yard a bit of a mow, but I could fit you in after that, I suppose."

"How good of you," Tom said monotonously. "I'll be here before nightfall. Pack for a few days."

With that, he turned for the door.

"Hey," Marina called out without thinking.

Tom looked back at her questioningly, and Marina floundered, realising that she had no idea why she'd stopped him.

"Yes?" he prompted after she said nothing.

"Uh –" her eyes darted to the side where they fell on the small, brightly coloured crystal resting on her bedside table. "Thanks for the present," she finished lamely, gesturing to it. "I really like it."

"You're welcome," Tom said archly.

"Charlie said it's worth a bunch of money," Marina said, horrifically aware that she was rambling.

He hesitated, his expression turning ever so slightly reserved again. "Is that what you like about it?"

"No," she said quickly, "no, I like it because it's pretty and colourful and warm."

Tom's frown gave way as the corner of his mouth twitched. "That's more like what I was expecting," he said wryly, "though I must admit, I only learned of its true market value after I'd wrapped it. Perhaps that would have influenced my decision to give it to you…"

Marina rolled her eyes. "You know, I really miss being able to throw a book at your face and making you disappear."

"I'm wounded," Tom smirked, and he turned on his heel and vanished down the stairs, leaving Marina to stare at the space he'd left behind with her thoughts swirling and chest full of twisting emotions that she didn't care to unpick.

A/N: Your reviews are so amazing! Thank you so so much :)

If you liked the last vine comp, part 2 is out! :P Search "Seven Devils Vine Comp (p2)" and you'll find it.

Thanks again for your continuing support! I have so much fun with this story tbh, I'm really excited to share it with you :)