Alisha's eyes fell open once she'd regained consciousness. Her spine ached terribly from the position in which she was laying down in. She put pressure into her elbows to raise herself up but winced immediately, emitting a scowl noise that vibrated throughout the place. She began to actually look around but all she could see was darkness.

She felt around her, horrified of what she might touch next. But it all felt like the soft exterior of a solid crystal. She placed her hands all over herself and felt for her wand or anything in her, but all there was was her normal uniform attire. She began getting anxious from the lack of light and not knowing where she was and who was with her.

"Hello?" she said through raspy breaths. Her voice simply overlapping each other as it travelled far. "Anybody??"

She was squinting her eyes in hopes to see anything, anything except for blackness. Her teeth were chattering and her toes wouldn't stop clenching. All she could just hear was that high-pitched noise that kept ringing in her ear, preventing her from hearing the silence. She sniffed the moist feeling in her noise just to hear something else.

"Tom?" she asked the darkness. She may be asking his name in hopes of saving her or because she thought he was the one that put her here. She didn't know either. "Tom???" she yelled louder.

"Poor Alisha," Tom's voice echoed from behind her. She turned her head around but didn't know where particularly to look. Suddenly, a ball of light passed through a tip of a stick all the way down toward the end of the place, it took about ten long seconds for it to reach a surface to lay steadily on. Now she could get a bit of a view of her surroundings.

She was right, they were crystals, the ones she was laying on. And everywhere else was just water; dark and unmoving. She then looked back to her boyfriend, who stood there with a smug look on his face.

"Tom," she said fixedly. "Why am I here?" she almost hissed, but being very careful with her tone since he was in control of the everything that was happening right now. She tried to be mindful of his every move.

The smug look on his face grew bigger. "For safe keeping."

"What are you talking about?" she asked like he was crazy.

He took offense to this and scowled. "You're here because I need to protect you."

They fell from her eyes involuntarily, the tears, so continuous and heavy. She clutched on her chest as they ached. "Protect me from what?? You??"

Tom's smirk became a faint frown. "You would never need protection from me, I would never hurt you."

"You hit me!" she cried accusingly.

"I had to!" he yelled. "I had no choice! You were going to leave! What should I have done?!"

"Leave it! Let me go! Just accept that we couldn't be together anymore! Why was that too hard for you??"

"Because I love you! Is that so hard to believe?!"

She sobbed and hung her head low to allow herself to breathe through anger and desperation. How would you have felt if you were trappes in a lightless cave with an abusive boyfriend who's convinced he's doing everything for your own good? Hard to put a finger on that.

"Oh, Alisha," he sighes sadly. "Don't cry," he said like he didn't know how to fix it. "I promise I would never hurt you in any way again. I just couldn't risk you leaving. This was the only way I knew I could keep you."

"This is sick..." she mumbled.

He ignored her comment. "I don't know if I'll be able to live knowing that I let you leave me. I wouldn't be able to fathom it. Just thinking about it makes me angry. I can't let you leave, just understand, please."

"This is sick..." she repeated, still staring at ground with her hand on her heart.

"What would you do?? Would you have let me leave you if I tried to?? Is that how much I repel you?? Am I that hard to love?" He was getting himself all frustrated.

She lifted her head up to stare at him with nothing but pure disgust on her face. "You're sick! This isn't love! None of this is anymore! I can't believe I ever let you touch me! Talk to me! Come near me! I could never love you."

She wiped herself off, shook her body and flailed around, feeling so disgusted with herself with all the overwhelming memories of him ever touching her, invading her skin. She was totally losing it. And Tom didn't know how to make her stop. This was not what he'd planned, but it would do.

"How can you not understand how much I love you?! Why was that ever so hard for you to understand! I tried! But you made it so impossible! You brought out the absolute worst in me!"

She shook her head unbelievably. "It's not me. It couldn't be. We were so good before. Everything was fine. And then you changed..."

"Did I really?" he challenged. "Or did I just find out more about myself and got to know you better? And figured out just how much I resent you?"

"What are you talking about?" she asked exhaustedly, standing up on both feet.

"What am I talking about?!" he snapped. "I can't believe you don't get it! It's always been you! Everything in the world and everybody's life was always about Alisha van der Austrelle and how rich and pretty she is! How she had her hair up that day and what she bought at Hogsmeade the next! Alisha! Alisha! Alisha!"

She only stared at him with a fixated expression.

"You didn't deserve anything you ever got! But you still get everything simply because you're Alisha! Do you know how that felt?! Being in the shadow of your own girlfriend who couldn't even spell to save lives! It's insulting! I deserve everything you have. Even your brother deserves everything you have! You're nothing but a pathetic excuse for a pure-blood! Do you know how many people wish they were pure? People like me?! No! What do you do? You befriend blood-traitors and dirty bloods! And nobody cares because you're Alisha! Don't you see the pattern?!"

She nodded quietly. "I do."

"It took you this long to realize?! This long to see my side of the story? I've tried to tell you! But all you cared about was how everything affected you! I'm the only one in the long legendary line of the Salazar Slytherin to ever share the blood of a muggle! And here you were, complaining about your privilege!"

"You're broken," she said.

Tom halted from his long and heated rant to look at her. "Excuse me?"

"I feel so bad for you," she sympathized. "Living your life with hatred and jealousy of someone you think is so pathetic. Living your life hating your own blood, worshipping people who are dead and should mean nothing to you."

He hated that look in her eyes. Pity. He didn't want to believe that anything she was saying was true. It shouldn't be true and she should perish for even thinking it, let alone saying it out loud.

"You're gonna rot in here," he promised. "You're going to spend your entire miserable life in here."

Snape formed a straight line with his lips as his master told him the tragic story with such a painfully calm voice. It deeply unsettled him that Voldemort was never fazed from everything he'd done to her. But still, Snape kept his expressions and his body still.

He understood both sides of the story. He knew all the stories about how Alisha's life was perfect and that nobody could ever see anything going wrong in her life. Anyone fragile and insecure would've been threatened. But she'd done nothing worth dying for. It waa not her fault she was privileged and pure-blood that was everything Voldemort dreamed to be.

"My lord," he began, not even knowing what to say, but as a form of courtesy as it seemed like Voldemort was done. "Would it be safe to assume that she has passed?"

Voldemort didn't give it another thought. "Yes. She would never have it in her to survive past the years a muggle would. She is weakest in any form."

"Should we head on to the cave before the boy does then? Prevent them from seeing the girl?"

Voldemort slowly tilted his head to look at him, his eyes slightly widened and his lips parted. "I haven't visited my beloved in 21 years. It would be nice to have a moment alone. Do everything you can to stall their little trip. I shall go alone."