A/N: Okay, having taken a much longer time than promised, here is the next chapter in the installment. Oh, and so you know, the ghost of Wilton Quirrell will feature in the next chapter (or perhaps two from now, depending on how the next one pans out), this I promise you! Now read on—mysteries are set up, Voldemort returns in strength, and everyone has a merry old time.
Chapter FourCracked eggs, dead birds
Scream as they fight for life
I can feel death, can see its beady eyes
All these things into position
All these things we'll one day swallow whole
And fade out again and fade out again
-Radiohead, "Street Spirit"
The rest of the summer was whiled away in Snape's large estate, with lazy afternoons spent studying Greek and obscure philosophers (Severus began to ask himself if there was any way to go back in time and strangle Aristotle), and mornings filled with the wonderful pleasure of waking up by someone's side. Of course, the nights were not so pleasurable—at least once a week, they would be summoned to Voldemort.
Sylvia would go along with Snape for the meetings, in which Voldemort would stare at him with the coldest of hatred, and then he would have to wrench himself away from her, knowing she would not return for a day or so.
Sometimes she returned wearing the red dress, sometimes other old items of hers, which must have been tucked away in whatever place she and Voldemort met. Snape recalled a particularly funny day when she had come back in a bright yellow short dress, her hair mussed, looking as if she had stepped out of a much earlier decade.
He knew that her promise to Voldemort was growing strained, and that the man was getting angrier with him day by day. She tried to tell him that she needed more time, and that she needed all the members of the Three with her to do it, but Voldemort was becoming suspicious, and life was growing more and more dangerous. Soon it was time to return to school, to prepare for the coming year.
***
When Snape and Sylvia returned to Hogwarts a few days before term began, it was to a subdued atmosphere. Everything seemed dimmer, gloomier, and so did everyone's countenances.
Dumbledore, in his opening speech, warned the students of the return of Voldemort, and Sylvia watched from her seat on the dais (she was at Hogwarts on the pretense of archaeology again) as all the students flinched at the sound of the name. All except for a select few, most of whom were sitting at the Gryffindor table.
"Severus, is that Harry Potter?" she asked, pointing as inconspicuously as possible at the boy who lived.
"That's him, all right," he muttered. "Brave Potter and his two best friends, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger." He was sarcastic.
"They didn't flinch at Tom's other name," she remarked, staring at the unruly black hair and the round glasses fixedly.
"No, they did not." He tried his best not to make much of it. He didn't like to think Potter as courageous as he knew he really was.
"All the better for them, then. There's going to be more to flinch at, when he returns in full," she whispered to him, and there was a flash of some old nameless power in her eyes.
***
After the banquet was over, the prefects led the first years back to the dorms, and Sylvia excused herself from Snape.
"There's some business I need to attend to, love," she said. "Oh, and if Rosamund gets in, will you let me know?" She and Sophia St. Paul, the youngest member of the Three, were still awaiting the arrival of their middle member, Rosamund Smith, whom they had not heard from in a few months.
"Of course, that's no problem," he said, "As Head of Slytherin House, I need to go down to our common room anyway and introduce myself to the new students, so we'll just meet up again later."
"Oh!" she said brightly. "Then you can escort me down there! That's just where I was going."
"Sylvia, the location of our commons is supposed to be a secret. How on earth do you know where it is?"
She gave him an exasperated look. "Severus, I bore the heir of Slytherin. Do you not think a man takes his wife to the common room every once in a while?"
Suddenly he felt foolish. "Ah, right," he said stupidly. "Well, then. On we go."
As they reached the low-ceilinged common room, Snape stepped to the front to discuss policies with the first-years, but out of the corner of his eye, he was watching Sylvia, who had pursued Draco Malfoy, and was apparently discussing something of great importance with him.
"…points can be taken away from the House for…" Snape droned on, only to be cut off by the discussion between Sylvia and Malfoy, which had reached its peak.
"IT'S NOT TRUE! I DON'T BELIEVE YOU!" Malfoy shouted, his face crimson.
"Go then, Draco! But know that it is all true, every last word of it!" Sylvia snapped back, flying out of the room in a rage, the door slamming behind her. Everyone watched as Malfoy stalked back to his dormitory, and then there was a moment of silence.
"For disorderly conduct…" Snape began again.
***
Later on, he made his way up to Sylvia's room, bright and cheerful, and dominated by the large 16th century portrait of her. But her room was empty. She returned a few minutes after he had arrived, still dressed in her pale pink robes.
"Oh hey, Sevy! Sorry, I was out and about. How long have you been waiting?"
"Not very. Sylvia, what was that argument between you and Mr. Malfoy about?"
She grew tight-lipped. "I really can't tell you right now, Severus. Suffice it to say that I am not pleased with him at the moment."
"Sylvia, do you remember the first year you were here? How many secrets you kept, and how maddening it was? I thought there were to be no more secrets between us!" After all, didn't she trust him?
She sat down on the bed next to him, and placed one of his hands in her own. "I'm so sorry, Sevy. I'd like to tell you, I really would. But Albus and I have decided that I can't. It's just too dangerous to let you know about everything, isn't it? Tom is gaining power every day, and it's taking all my convincing to keep him from killing you. If he were to give you the veritaserum potion, you would be vulnerable. Some things must be kept secret."
"You're right, of course," he agreed. "I just hate that it has to be like that. He's ruined everything, hasn't he?"
"Surely it couldn't be everything," she murmured, leaning over to kiss him. Suddenly, he forgot what he had been talking about.
***
It was the middle of the night a week or so later, with Severus Snape sleeping peacefully beside her, that Sylvia was summoned once again, her mark flaring up in a rush of pain. She was surprised, for Tom had never summoned her alone—usually she came along to the Death Eaters' meetings, and then stayed afterwards.
She looked down at her One, so beautiful and innocent as he slept, and decided that she shouldn't wake him. She couldn't be gone for too long, after all, and she hated the look he got in his eyes when she told him that she had been summoned.
Reluctantly, she rearranged herself, and found the man who had once been Tom Riddle waiting for her in the bedroom of the Riddle House, their usual meeting place. His eyes were almost merry—if such evil eyes could ever be called merry, as if the malice flickering in them was a merry malice—and he seemed excited.
"Mother," he said, running a long, cold finger up the side of her arm. She shuddered a little bit. She still wasn't used to the coldness of his touch. He hadn't been cold like this before, all those years ago. His touch had been warm then, even if his purposes had not.
"Yes, Tom?" she asked tiredly. "What warrants getting me up in the middle of the night?"
"But I do so love this little thing that you wear to bed," he remarked, fingering her short polka-dotted chemise, semi-sheer and clinging to her in places.
"Well, thank God for little miracles," she said wryly. "At least you love something."
"Mother," he said again, this time a bit impatiently, "I summoned you here to warn you. I don't know why you still waste your time with that old fool Dumbledore—"
"I've told you, Tom, only until we kill him and the other, and I can be with you—"
"But," he said, interrupting her interruption, "That is of no consequence. There will be an attack on the students within the next few days, on their first Hogsmeade visit. I want to show that Muggle loving fool that I'm not to be trifled with."
"Tom," she breathed, wondering how she could get the news to Albus on time.
"I don't completely trust you yet, Andromache," he said, using the name that her mother had given her more than two thousand years ago, and watching her face carefully. "I'm not going to give you the chance to go back there and tell him about it. You'll stay with me until the attack and after that," his eyes began to twinkle with the malicious merriment again as he said it, "After that, you can return and tell me how that old fool feels about me then."
"But Tom—" she said, wracking her brain for an excuse to get away, but he shushed her with a bitterly cold finger placed against her lips.
"Come now, Mother, and hush," he said in the voice he thought was seductive (horrible in its tone, she thought). "I'm sure we can find something to occupy our time."
***
"She's been gone for three days now," Snape was telling Dumbledore, his voice worried. "Where could she have gone?"
"To Voldemort, undoubtedly," the headmaster replied.
"But why? He has never summoned her alone before, and even if he had, don't you think she would have let me know that she was going?" Snape asked, doing his best not to become over-emotional.
"Something is most definitely wrong," Dumbledore answered, "But I don't know what it is. Obviously Voldemort is planning something, something that he didn't want her back here to tell us about. I wish I knew what." He looked as if he had been spending quite a bit of time thinking on the issue.
"So do I," Snape said, standing up and about to leave the headmaster's office. "Well, I suppose I really ought to get into town. They've already taken the students into Hogsmeade and I promised McGonagall and Sprout that I would meet them in the tavern for a drink."
Dumbledore stood up almost wildly, realization dawning on him. "That's it, Severus! He knows he can't get into the school, so he's going to get at them this way! He couldn't let her come back here and tell us that he was going to attack them! We must go!"
Awed by the power that the old headmaster was suddenly exhibiting, Snape immediately agreed.
***
The scene that met their eyes in the village of Hogsmeade was a terrifying one. Several buildings had been destroyed, smoke rising from them into the blue autumn sky, clogging the air. Much of their merchandise had been thrown haphazardly into the streets and was strewn about at random, making it hard to get around. People were walking about in a daze, both students and adults, still in shock from the horror.
Snape and Dumbledore found McGonagall and the other teachers still in the tavern, nursing their wounds and others' in a makeshift infirmary.
"Albus!" McGonagall cried, her right shoulder bleeding profusely, as she ran forward to embrace him.
"Minerva, what's happened?" Dumbledore asked.
"Hogsmeade was attacked. The Death Eaters were out in force. We managed to beat them back eventually, but I think that they let us live on purpose. Something or someone made them leave. Dozens are wounded, three students are dead, and so are several townspeople."
"So Voldemort has shown himself publicly," he said, fire burning in his eyes. "He cannot go unpunished. We must summon Rosamund immediately—it has gone far enough."
"Albus, that's not all," McGonagall interjected, grasping for his arm.
"There's more?" Snape asked.
"Yes," she said. "Harry Potter is missing."
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Yikes! A cliffhanger! Where could Harry be? Did Voldemort seize him? Did he become a dancing monkey and join the circus? Who knows? Send in reviews, and add your wild theories.