Chapter 3. Detective Work
Something ugly this way comes
Through my fingers sliding inside
All these blessings all these burns
I'm godless underneath your cover
Search for pleasure search for pain
In this world now I am undying
I unfurl my flag my nation helpless
Black black heart why would you offer more
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy
I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core
I'm eating all your kings and queens
All your sex and your diamonds
As I begin to lose my grip
On these realities your sending
Taste your mind and taste your sex
I'm naked underneath your cover
Covers lie and we will blend and borrow
With the coming sign
The tide will take the sea will rise and time will rape
Black black heart why would you offer more
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy
I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core
I'm eating all your kings and queens
All your sex and your diamonds
Black black heart why would you offer more
Why would you make it easier on me to satisfy
I'm on fire I'm rotting to the core
I'm eating all your kings and queens
All your sex and your diamonds
All your sex and your diamonds
All your sex and your diamonds
All your sex and your diamonds
All your sex and your diamonds
"Black, Black Heart"
David Usher
………………………………...
Snatcher had been a Malfoy House Elf for over a hundred and fifty years, and in all the years and generations he'd lived in this house, he had never ever seen it so dark, so empty, so abandoned, or so angry.
The house itself was livid. Livid that it's Master Lucius had been forced to flee, furious that its Mistress Narcissa had been bound and dragged out of it against her will, and wrathfully violated because its inner hallways, sanctums and corridors had been crawling with prying, poking Traitors and Mudbloods.
Vermin.
Muggle-lovers.
Diluters of the Blood.
But mostly, the house was grieving. Grieving because The Child…Draco…had gone to school one year, then never returned.
Narcissa Malfoy had wailed for nights on end, in hollow, heart-rending, howls that echoed down the halls, when the news had reached her of Draco's involvement in Dumbledore's death. He was now a fugitive from both Aurors and Death Eaters a like.
Just like his father.
No…not like his father, because Lucius could walk through fire and find a way to come out smelling like a rose. When Lucius had angered the Dark Lord, the Malfoys had worried, but knew they could wait it out. The house had been holding it breath, but it had been confident that order would somehow be restored one day.
But when Draco went missing….
Snatcher the house elf had always had his theories about Malfoy Manor. It was said, and indeed Master Lucius had kept documents that seemed to prove the notion, that though the current version of the manor resembled nothing short of a full blown Gothic cathedral, the first version had been built as a Viking Hall, set up by the original progenitor of the Malfoy bloodline, the Warrior Wizard Grymwulf, a contemporary of Merlin's who'd never received as much acclaim for his bravery because he was Saxon, a pale-haired invader, not a cave-dwelling celt. An irony, considering that the muggle King Arthur had indeed been Saxon himself. Well, Master Lucius always said that you couldn't expect anything more from muggles or, for that matter, anyone named 'Arthur'.
It always seemed that the Malfoys were on the wrong side of some war.
For close to a millennium now, the Manor had witnessed its pale haired owners walk its insides, live, love, laugh, decorate, fortify, then rebuild. So much magic had been involved in its assembly, by now, that the House had developed a sentient personality…and an acute protective love of all things Malfoy.
It had survived giant rebellions, centaur attacks and dragon races. Generations of its paranoid tenants had installed a garden of giant, man-eating Venus Flytraps, a lake of zombie Great White sharks, an outer wall topped with razor sharp spikes worthy of a Caesarean fortress and a specially spliced breed of Devil's Snare that tended to sporadically migrate all over the property. Fires were no threat, flooding was encouraged and woe betided those who tried to knock it down. It had survived World Wars, Wizard Wars and always at its heart, it had stood like a fortress, shielding the bloodline from those outside its walls.
But now the house held nothing.
Nothing.
Lucius had fled and could not come back. Narcissa had been taken from within it and Draco…Draco….
Lightening cracked the sky and thunder rattled the earth, so loud and close it hurt Scratcher's big, floppy ears. He whimpered and cowered, a growing sense of foreboding eating away at his hard-won resolve.
None of the other house elves dared emerge from the kitchen anymore. They were terrified. The house had 'eaten' a couple of them within the first week of empty misery, stashing their little petrified bodies in broom closets or laundry chutes, places that the other house elves would be sure to find them.
But Scratcher….Scratcher and the house were old acquaintances….or at least Scratcher hoped the House considered him an old acquaintance. At least they were both grieving….Scratcher missed the Malfoys too, which is why he'd braved his way up to the main levels on an almost nightly basis.
The Manor knew he was loyal. Unlike that sorry excuse for a house elf, Dobbie, who came through a few years ago. The house had hated him. It was constantly shutting things on his ears and fingers. It was a good thing that traitor had left long before this, or the Manor would've found a way to 'eat' him for sure. Push him into an oven or over a banister, or something…
Scratcher's philosophising on Dobbie's treachery ended abruptly when a long shriek of rage and agony whistled its way down the very corridor he was in, slamming paintings against the walls, overturning furniture and ripping the carpets out of the floors as it went. This wanton destruction of itself had started the moment the House Elves had stopped emerging from their warm, well-lit kitchen. On some ephemeral sublevel, Scratcher felt a little sorry for the house. It felt like it looked. Desolate.
On this particular night, Scratcher had emerged in the upper levels to try and find a tiny picture of the Young Master that he could steal while the house was being particularly docile. He had tried taking a portrait of the boy off one of the libraries' walls, once, but the house had screamed and screamed and screamed, and then the walls in the room had began to come closer to each other, narrowing the room down, crushing the desk and bookshelves like nutshells, raining books down on poor Scratcher until he was almost crushed. But, it had stopped when he had become dangerously sandwiched flat between walls that normally stood thirty feet apart.
It had been a warning Scratcher had not forgotten, but he badly, badly wanted a picture of Master Draco and he wondered if maybe the Manor wouldn't begrudge him a tiny, bad one.
He was having his doubts, now. The house was active, tonight. Restless. Bored.
He had emerged just across from one of the little sitting rooms built along the long, exhausting hallways with large, balcony windows. There was a fireplace there that had been dead for many years (the Malfoys had not had parties in a while, thanks to the shaky situation they held in the public eye and most of their friends being in Azkaban). This corridor should have been the least frightening part of the house because the bay windows allowed the corridor to be well lit, even on the dimmest of nights, but the fact that the hallway was so long you couldn't see to either of its ends was more than a little unnerving.
Scratcher huddled in his little shadowed corner and seriously considered aborting his mission.
Then….suddenly…..something a hundred times more terrifying and riveting than anything the house could ever perform happened.
The dead, dark fireplace suddenly began to smoke. Then a lick of tiny, green flame curled upwards bravely, like a sprout breaking earth. Then more green flame blossomed into a huge burning bonfire. It crackled and roared and snapped but provided no heat.
Floo Fire.
Scratcher could barely make sense of what was happening it was so impossible.
Floo Fire.
Who DARED enter Malfoy Manor now? Who was coming? Why? Why would anyone come here?
A tall, black shape stepped out of the fire with as much soft, wafting, calm control as a Dementor. The fire instantly went out in a puff of dust and old, cold soot.
Scratcher whimpered and recoiled in on himself. He could not tell whether the House was frozen in anticipation or outrage, but nothing moved, not even the constantly blowing, bouncing papers that danced around the house of their own accord.
The visitor did nothing but stand in the darkness for a long, long time. Then, the faceless silhouette reached into itself and pulled out something long and thin; a wand. Scratcher heard the person take a deep breath and whisper, "Lumos."
A tiny white light appeared on the end of the wand, lighting up the stranger's face.
Scratcher's hands muffled his own scream. The house moaned like a mortally wounded beast, a soft wind blowing down the corridor, scattering papers, love letters, pictures of former, heartrendingly happy times.
She was back. Against all hope. Against all sense. The Young Mistress was back…
The tall, rake-thin woman looked up at the ceiling, her face in shadow. "Do you know who I am?"
In a distant part of the house, glass shattered, as if the implication that this house could ever forget Mistress Medusa was ludicrous.
In the light of her wand, the woman smiled a lopsided smile that revealed the white gleam of a canine. Scratcher shuddered; he knew the grin well.
"God, I've missed you…" whispered Medusa, her voice rough with victory. "I can't believe I'm here again…"
She put out a hand and gripped the filigree on the corner of one of the walls. If a house could shudder with pleasure, Scratcher believed Malfoy Manor would have.
The wall in front of Medusa's face began to gloop and bubble like melting rubber. Medusa frowned and withdrew her hand quickly as something began to emerge out of the disrupted surface.
"Oh…" she breathed. "Since when have you been this active…."
It was a picture frame, emerging out of the very wall as if it were rising through water. Scratcher knew the portrait well. It hung in the Rose Themed Dining Room, usually. The house must have wanted it to arrive exceedingly quickly to have pulled a stunt like that…
Medusa leaned in and peered through the writhing strings of liquefied wall at the portrait being produced. She saw…then she laughed. Her laugh echoed like tinkling crystal, all the way around the house, echoed, Scratcher was sure, by Malfoy Manor itself.
The portrait was of Master Lucius at age thirteen, sitting in his father's great big ornamental throne, slouched over backwards, with a leg draped over one of the arms, in a most insolent manner, jaw resting on his left hand as if nothing could bore him more than being painted, his chin-length hair loose and messy from quidditch. Sitting on his knee, was a Medusa at age nine, swinging her legs precociously, her face just as insolent in that innocent way only rude little girls could perfect.
"Oh Lucius," whispered this far older version of the girl in the picture. "Lucius…how am I going to find you?"
A sudden loud crash made Medusa wheel around, wand at the ready. It was one of the bay windows opening and closing convulsively. Then another pair of windows opened and closed violently. Then another. Then four at the same time. Then six then more until the entire corridor began to ring with opening and closing, crashing windows, flapping like agitated wings.
Medusa stood bewildered and amazed at this incredible show of force from the house. She turned around herself, several times, watching in disbelief, a look of awe on her hard face. "You know where he is?" she cried over the ruckus.
All the windows slammed shut in unison, a resounding 'No…' .
"So what…what are you trying to tell me?" asked Medusa hesitantly.
Again the windows began to flap open and shut at a horrendous pace, as if the House would exploded if it couldn't tell her.
Medusa laughed and raised up her arms in a plea for silence and the windows all slammed shut in unison again. One of them must have broken, because a freezing wind was blowing in from somewhere. The light on the end of her wand had extinguished itself, even though Scratcher hadn't herd her cast a 'Nox' charm.
He held his breath as the house held its breath. The world teetered on the brink of something in that complete and utter darkness. Scratcher wondered if anyone else in the world was up and worried, this late, and if not, if any sleepers were having nightmares of witches or an ancient gothic priestesses from old muggle fables…
"Pentoculum." she murmured in the dark, her dark silhouette dragging her wand through the air till she'd traced an inverted five point star around her feet in dim glowing green. The moment she'd finished, the moment the two final ends of the drawing had touched each other, sealing the deal, the inverted pentacle began to hum in rhythmical vibration. And she stood in the empty centre, black skirts twirling around her black boots, like some sort of executioner priest.
Looking up and into the darkness of the hallway, she then whispered, "Historium Revelatus."
The air in the house began buzzing with minor lightening balls and blue sparks. The green glowing pentacle hummed louder and shone brighter and brighter until the entire hallway was awash with glare. Then things began to rise off the floors.
Cabinets, filled with tonnes of ancient antiques, that were virtually immovable, papers, chairs and tables, curtains began to flutter upwards. Scratcher was terrified, though he showed no signs of lift-off anytime soon. Papers smacked into the ceiling as if they'd been thrown up there, then glued.
And then she began to rise.
Her long dark hair whipped about her face in the storm she'd conjured, as very, very slowly her feet left the floor, hanging limp and relaxed as if she were some sort of rag doll. Hovering about three feet off the ground, a whirlwind of candles and towels and old books spinning around her like pagans around a bonfire, Miss Zabini finally whispered, "Show me."
A loud crash that sounded very much like thunder shook through the corridor as a thin line of light, looking like a crack in the floor, shot out of the pentacle's right point and began to speed down the hallway towards the grand East Wing, like a run in some stockings.
Immediately, the hovering woman shot after it, hovering as if some giant hand that had her by the waist was saving her the need to walk. But far from looking comical or just plain strange, Scratcher found it macabre, how powerful she was, to the extent where she could split open the house's secrets the way she was about to do.
He did not follow her. He had not seen her after her final year at school but had heard the elves downstairs talk of Miss Medusa and how she had changed after Hogwarts.
Obviously, they had not known how much.
Medusa flew after the trail the house was blazing for her in its own floor. Of course, this would leave a permanent smoking black crack in the ancient oak floors, but Medusa doubted Lucius would begrudge her her need for instant results.
Her hair streamed behind her as she flew faster and faster , up the great stairs, down the corridor to the bedrooms, past the one the part of the house that had once been her own, past little baby Draco's quarters (well, not much of a baby now, she was sure) and finally into the most private, collected part of the house, the King and Queen suite, that Lucius and Narcissa had never quite moved out of after their honeymoon.
The doors had been bolted shut, with Ministry spells warding off anyone who thought to break in, yellow 'Caution' tape defiling the ancient engravings like spider webs on the Mona Lisa.
"Fragmento." demanded Medusa and the crack in the floor began running up the centre of the door, eating its way through Ministry spells, which glowed purple and orange and pink weakly before all disappearing and dying beneath the power of her casting. In a moment, the doors had exploded open inwards, showering the hallway with dust, pieces of door and wall debris.
Silence.
Medusa hovered where she was, savouring the moment like a sadistic lover holding back at climax. The house moaned.
She hovered into the room.
And, in its turn, like a lover over-spilling, the house let her see and let her have it all. All the secrets. All the pain.
Medusa watched. Slowly, a faint glowing green form began to waver and materialise sitting at the great ornamental mirror and makeup table to the left of the room. The ghostly shape sat and stared at its own reflection in the mirror, silent tears, dark with black mascara, rolling down a face that had once made the boys at Hogwarts ache with its beauty.
" Oh, Cissa." Medusa heard the rawness in her own voice and felt justified. "Oh, my poor…sweet…"
The ghost of Narcissa, or rather, the imprint of her form left there like a recording of her actions in the House's memory, silently and dejectedly picked up a ghostly brush and automatically began to brush the long main of golden hair cascading around her nape and down her front, cushioning the side of her face like an expensive fleece. The sorrow and fear and emptiness in those dark eyes, the helplessness in a woman who for all intents and purposes Medusa had always thought of as a Princess, left the watching witch with the feeling that nothing in her world had ever been sacred or safe.
Then, the ghost of Narcissa suddenly jumped and dropped the brush from her hand, spinning around wild eyed to look right at Medusa.
Except she wasn't looking at Medusa.
Out of the corner of her eye, Medusa saw another green ghostly form walk in from the doorway that now stood directly behind her.
Pin-straight rivers of liquid, black and shiny as obsidian or petroleum, the night to Narcissa's day, the tar to Narcissa's feather.
Bellatrix.
Medusa frowned slightly to see Narcissa begin to scream in fear as her sister advanced. What was this? A visit from Bellatrix was a dubious pleasure for sure, but why was Narcissa terrified of her own sister? What was happening here?
Bellatrix advanced, contemptuous as a queen, and said something. Medusa tried to lip read and caught, "……Draco…..dead…." and "Trust me…."
And there was no doubt what Narcissa was howling as she got to her feet. Noooooo! Noooooooo! Bella! Pleeeeeease!
From the corner of her eye, again from the doorway, Medusa saw three men, clothed in white robes, with white surgical masks on their faces advance, with what was unmistakably a straight jacket. They had hauled in a an equally white and non-committal stretcher and some form of leather restraint with buckles on it.
Medusa's breath hitched in her chest as she watched in acute agony and mortified pity as Narcissa, beautiful, delicate Cissa, made a desperate grab for her hair shears and backed into a corner, looking desperately from the advancing masked men to her own sister.
Bella was mouthing something else silently now, with a gleam in her eye that looked anything but loving. For your own good… she was saying, right before she lunged forward, with those cobra-like reflexes that only a murderess like Bella could hone and wrapped her long, pale fingers around her sister's equally pale wrists twisting until Narcissa not only dropped the scissors, but tumbled to her knees, sobbing.
The men now felt free to attack. They had Narcissa in the straight jacket in a blur of movement that Medusa did not even have time to interpret. Then they felt free to wrap the leather restraints around her legs so that she was completely and utterly trussed up, like a sacrifice. Narcissa, by this time had gone into complete frenzy, bucking and writhing, golden hair flying everywhere as the attempts to restrain her resulted in handfuls being pulled out and left to float to the floor, like the feathers of a murdered angel.
As two of the men lifted her up in the stretcher and took her out of the room, the third came and stood next to Bella, who had coldly watched the proceedings through eyes narrowed at a job well done. He mumbled something beneath his mask that Medusa could not even attempt to guess at through her own tears.
As they left the room, Medusa could see that Narcissa was still screaming for Bella even as she passed out of the protection of her and Lucius' love nest.
But, now… Medusa only had eyes for what Bellatrix Lestrange might say to this man. Through heartbreak, through betrayal, Medusa's wrath still burnt deeper than her grief and it finally paid off when she saw Bellatrix's blood red lips form the words: "…..St. Mungo's Mental Ward…"
Doctor Zealott McMadden had always been a little proud of his reputation as a madman in charge of madmen. That the papers and media in general thought of him so was limitlessly flattering, though he tended to think of himself as a connoisseur and collector of the mentally unstable.
But all flattery aside he was a genius at recognizing a broken mind, and people knew it. They knew it and paid him for it; he'd been the head of St. Mungo's Mental Ward for over twenty years, now, and none of the petitions for his removal had succeeded in doing anything other than provide much needed publicity for himself.
And because he recognized true madness when he saw it (it took a madman to know a madman, he always thought) he found himself agreeing whole-heartedly to whatever Bellatrix Lestrange might demand of him, though, even by his interesting standards, throwing your own sister into the loony-bin was a tad…low.
But he didn't like saying no to Bellatrix Lestrange. He knew of her sordid past as much as anyone else did; she was legendary, wasn't she? But more than that, it was her eyes….her black, remorseless, amused eyes that had…well…admittedly terrified him into plotting the coupe (as he liked to think of it) on Malfoy Manor.
And besides all that, she had offered him something he couldn't refuse….a Malfoy in his little showcase for the insane. And what a magnificent specimen Narcissa Malfoy was. The last time a Malfoy had been tossed into the Mental Ward had been two hundred years ago and , well, Bartolomeux Mars Malfoy had been just stark raving, speaking-to-God, frothing at the mouth, convulsing till he got lock-jaw crazy. Plus he'd started three wars and wiped out an entire species of Giant to boot.
Narcissa was a nice specimen. She was the sit-on-her-bed, rocking-back-and-forth, crying-and-mumbling-to-herself, refusing-to-touch-any-food-until-she-was-tied-and-force-fed crazy. Which was Dr. McMadden's favourite type.
So not only had he gotten a beautiful butterfly in his glass case for being a good boy, he had gotten rid of Bellatrix, who, he had been sure, was only waiting for an excuse to do horrid and excruciating things to him if he stood in her way. After all, he was also in charge of two of her past victims, Mr. And Mrs. Longbottom, even nicer crazies than Narcissa, who still had some fight in her. He saw what Bellatrix had done to them. Dr. Zealott McMadden was many, many things…mad, amongst them…but he was not stupid.
But then…..
Then the other one had shown up.
At first he'd thought a Dementor had walked into his ward. Sure enough the woman was tall and rake thin underneath her black hood and cowl.
Then, possibly even nastier than thinking it was a Dementor, he'd thought it was Bellatrix LeStrange, back again and displeased with him.
No, it wasn't Bellatrix, but…this person….was perhaps just as terrifying.
This person….was another one of them…those….mad people who you did not dare to inform of their own madness lest they take you apart limb from limb…slowly.
But….but she did ask to see his beautiful Malfoy specimen…so…so he at least felt compelled to ask a few questions! Especially that the nurse had skittered away the instant he'd arrived, taking this terrifying guest off her hands.
No, it was not Bellatrix. There was a resemblance, for sure, but the dark hair bunching beneath the cloak's hood was spiralled and curling, the skin dark, the eyes….amber.
And the madness was different. There was no disconcerting lack of interest here, but a kind of taught hunger that one only found in rabid dogs.
"C-c-c-" he choked. "C-can I h-help… you?"
The woman stared at him from the shadows of her cowl, her eyes sizing him up in a swift sweep that found him more than wanting.
"I'm looking for Narcissa Malfoy."
"Yes, w-w-well…" Dr. McMadden stuttered, pushing back his spectacles and waggling his little black moustache uncomfortably. "The…the p-patient you speak of is….is under the highest…sec…security…" He trailed off.
Her eyes had shifted to his shiny bald pate, studying his skull with distaste. Then, her tiny, malicious pupils became smaller (if that was even possible), pin-prinks in pools of lava, and swept down to take in his diminutive size, before coming up to freeze him in place again, like a python bewitching a monkey…its next meal.
And though her expression remained void of anything as clear cut as hatred, he felt sure that the thoughts running through her head involved smashing his skull open against the tiles of his own hospital and smearing his brains out like cheap pâté.
He could barely breath….but out of fear for his life, he managed to squeeze out enough air to squeak. "This way!"
Medusa had always hated the Mental Ward. It gave most people the willies, but she had more intimate memories of it than most people.
She could still remember the mandatory visitations to their mother her and Morgana had been dragged to when they were very, very young, until the Blacks and the Malfoys had adopted them, respectively.
Walking between the white beds, in the white ward, with the white clad staff and patients, it seemed like only yesterday that Morgana had bravely taken a firm grip on her five-year-old sister's mittened paw and led the way to bed number 32.
That version of Medusa had been tear stained and red faced with mewling in agonised fear over this. Morgana, at least, had remembered a time when their mother had not been quite so mad, but little Dusa had nothing but memories of their father dead in his own blood and their mother setting fire to the house.
Morgana had always tried to stop the visitations when they were in the Ministry's care, but the woman at the half-way house would jinx the eight year old and toss her in a cupboard for days to quell any rebellion. And without food, little Morgana had always caved, despite a heroic effort.
Besides, there had been another reason why Morgana had kept her mouth shut to stay out of the cupboard much of the time. It always seemed that after being released from her prison, she'd always find Medusa had somehow obtained some sort of mysterious, inexplicable superficial injury…like a bruised face…or a split lip…or even…once…a concussion.
The Ministry had declared it mandatory for them to visit with their last remaining parent, violent and demented as she had been. So the mudblood bitch at the half-way house had made sure they went. She'd been only too happy to teach a couple of pureblood brats what life was really like in the 'Real World'.
Of course, the 'Real World' came back to bite her in the butt, when a few years later, during a particularly stormy summer night, when Lucius, Medusa and a couple of her other bored cousins had had nothing better to do but drain the contents of several liqueur cabinets, they'd found that very same halfway house again and were only too pleased to find the same mudblood bitch still running it.
It had been Medusa's idea to conjure the giant iron spike out of the ground and then tie her to it. Let the lightening finish her off, Medusa'd said at the time. Bitch might not even die the first time around…
Then, in a euphoric haze, she'd taken lamp oil to the orphanage and yelled, "Incendio! Incendio!" until flames licked up its walls into nothingness.
Lucius had laughed himself limp, the soot on his face only making him look roguish and debonair, as all five kids rolled in the wet grass and watched the blaze. "Oh, look!" he'd called drunkenly. "You take after your mummy after all, Medusa!"
Incidentally, Narcissa had not been put in bed 32.
But that hardly made it bearable to see Cissy in such condition.
Her creamy complexion now had a sickly yellow pallor. Her hair, matted and tangled with sweat and tears as it was, had been hastily twisted into a long, loose braid, winding around her neck and down her back to her bottom, like noose rope. She sat curled up, her knees beneath her chin, arms circling them, rocking back and forth, agitated by surroundings that were not her home, people that were not her family, a place that had probably unhinged her more, rather that fix her. The bruises around her wrists and ankles where they'd restrained her were dark and exactly the shape of the straps of leather used, as terribly painful bruises always are.
They hadn't even mercifully used magic on her.
The beasts.
Medusa had to turn away. The thought of Lucius seeing his beautiful wife, the mother of his child, treated like this, the golden haired Black sister he'd doggedly courted at school and presented with a ring in the darkness of her family home garden, the summer they'd graduated….
But Lucius was just as helpless, somewhere.
Lucius…was helpless. For the first time in his life.
And so he'd burrowed down into the dark depths of Azkaban's more forgotten crevices and he'd found her. He'd dug her out.
Lucius, it seemed, always had some kind of card up his sleeve.
So….not so helpless, after all.
Hiss laughed inside Medusa's head., but said nothing.
She turned around, the thought steeling her against heartbreak and approached the bed.
Distractedly, as if she'd been lost in some secret silent imaginings, Narcissa looked up at the Grim Reaper hovering over her.
"Narcissa."
The golden hair woman gasped, her eyes widening to three times their original size till all their whites stared out around the grey blue irises, like a skittish horse in a fire.
"You…" she breathed. "You…What are you?!"
Medusa misunderstood. Gently sitting herself on the edge of the bed, she murmured, "Don't you remember me?"
Narcissa laughed as tears began to slide down her face, scampering onto her knees and bringing up cold shaking hands to put at Medusa's hot, sharp face. "Are you here to kill me?" she asked through her happy weeping.
"No! Of course not!"
"You've come to die..."
"What?"
"You were never supposed to see the sun again! Never! But now you've seen the sun…breathed the air…you walk amongst the living and They will kill you….They will kill you, little dog, like they killed my D-d-draco…" And here the incoherent, feverish speech melted into painful, coughing sobs. "…and my Lucius…and me…oh they've killed me…You should have stay! You should have stayed!"
"No!" Medusa leaned forward and enfolded Narcissa in her arms. "No one is going to kill anyone…"
" Oh yes They will! Oh yes They will! They kill everyone! Everything! Even family…" Narcissa shook, burying her face in Medusa's shoulder.
"Who's They?" asked Medusa gently, though she knew perfectly well who.
Narcissa pulled away, looking her in the face, disbelieving. Then she let out a mad bark of a laugh that was completely unamused and vanished as suddenly as it had appeared.
"They are US, little dog." said Narcissa. "They are US. They used to be YOU, too, but you aren't Them anymore, are you?"
"No." replied Medusa grimly. "No I'm not. But they don't know that yet."
Narcissa suddenly looked fearful. She clutched at Medusa's wrist, surprising the other woman by how strong she was.
"Don't, little dog! Don't! They're very clever! Very clever! Cleverer than Lucius! And certainly cleverer than my little D-d-draco…" The sobbing came again.
Oh, she's a mess, sighed Jabber.
Hiss merely made a sound of condescending disgust. How far the mighty had fallen. Pathetic.
"I'll be careful, Cissa," said Medusa.
"Don't call me that!" snarled Narcissa ferociously, teeth bare, eyes narrowed formidably. Medusa leaned back, eyebrows raised in alarm. "That B-b-bitch called me that! That BITCH!"
A small smile twisted Medusa's lips. "Bellatrix." she offered sweetly.
Narcissa merely spat like a cat on electrodes. "BITCH! THAT BITCH! When I get my hands on her…I'm going to KILL me a Bella-bitch…"
"If she's the bitch…then what makes me the Little Dog?"
"Because you were always so loyal…" breath Narcissa leaning forward and holding Medusa's face in both her hands, as if catching dripping water that would vanish into the ground if dropped. "So…so needlessly loyal…and They usedyou. They used you up, Little Dog, just like they used my D-d-draco….my poor sweet Draco…oh my little boy! My baby boy!"
Narcissa's hands grabbed at her own hair and Medusa quickly pounced forward, sheilding the older woman in her arms before the agonised screaming could attract anymore attention than it already had from the wary, patrolling matrons and nurses.
Medusa looked around worriedly as Narcissa's muffled howls echoed from her lap. Medusa let her cry and cry until she stilled and was exhausted., finally revealing her face so that the side of her head now rest on the huge, dark, wet patch she'd created in Dusa's robes.
"They're going to kill my boy…"she murmured faintly, eyes glazed and swollen distantly.
Medusa stroked her head. "No. I'll find him. I'll help him, Narcissa. They won't get to him before I do, I promise."
"Okay." replied Narcissa meekly.
There was a silence in which Medusa could bring herself to do nothing but comfort the other woman, though she was growing highly apprehensive about the time she was losing.
"Narcissa, it would really help me if I knew where Draco was."
… "I don't know."
"Narcissa…"
"I don't know."
Does she really not know or is she protecting him? wondered Jabber.
Does it matter? Even if she does know she'll take it with her to the grave… said Hiss.
But we're on her side! Shouldn't she trust us?
Hiss shrieked with laughter. Jabber! The genes for 'Trust' have long since been bred out of the pureblood gene pool, you fool.
"Alright," relented Medusa. "Alright. Do you think you can tell me where Lucius is?"
"I…don't…know!" wailed Narcissa gripping her hair again. "I don't know! I don't know! I don't know!"
" It's alright, my love. It's alright…"
"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"
"It's fine. I'll find them. I just…I just…" Medusa sighed. "I wish I knew where to start…"
And then…
It occurred to her to ask….
"Narcissa?…do you know….how I can find…The Others?"
Very very slowly, Narcissa straightened from the position of flagellation she'd thrown herself into when she'd been unable to help Medusa. She sat up and stared and stared and stared. Then…she giggled.
"The Others…" she croaked.
"Yes."
Narcissa blinked. "They walk on the dead." she said, eyes glazing over.
Anyone else would have been baffled.
Medusa knew exactly what she meant.
Standing behind the angel statue, one could have looked out over the graves and believed that they were completely alone, amongst the crumbling headstones, the mist that seemed to hang stagnant and unmoving in the freezing, humid night, wrapping itself around statues of cherubs and gargoyles alike, masking them and making one no different from the other.
But if one had simply taken a few steps around the tall angel and her dew showered skirts, one would have noticed many other important factors, the most pressing of which was the fact that nestled and crowned by the brackets of the angels arching wingspan…was a tall, hooded figure.
If you were unlucky enough to be a non-magical person, you would perhaps have twisted yourself in knots trying to figure out how this person could have simply apparated here. If you were unlucky enough to be magical, you'd realise that that was just what this mysterious figure had done. Apparated.
Either way, to be the discoverer of this visitor before she was ready to acknowledge you, would have been exceedingly unlucky for anyone.
But she was alone for now, standing still and void in the moonlight, a Black Hole vacuum amongst the stars, framed by an angel whose face the sculptor had twisted into apt agony considering that the crypt she hovered over belonged to the infamous Riddle family.
How….typical, spat Hiss in abject disgust. How utterly, predictably, pathetically typical. You know, if Narcissa hadn't come out and said they were here, this would've been the first place I suggested we check anyway…
Actually, we probably wouldn't have checked it, seeing as it's so bloody obvious of them to be here…
They're unafraid, said Jabber softly. They don't care who walks in on them now…
Yes, well they're fools, replied Hiss. They haven't won the war yet…
Something flitted quickly between two grave stones in the corner of Medusa's eye.
We've got company, she thought and both Hiss and Jabber snapped silent in an instant.
Keeping her eyes wide beneath her cowl she waited and waited, breathing slowly, heart thundering , a predator, unflinching, unmoving, unblinking.
Then she saw it again, another robed figure rushing through the darkness, definitely trying to avoid attracting attention.
And she was gone, silent and deadly as sickness, not bothering to hide, but instead depending on the petrifying panic her direct attack would induce in her pray.
Sure enough, she caught him behind one of the more distant graves.
He'd been alarmed enough to gasp, which was enough time for her to cast a silent 'Splayagio' on him. His limbs pulled themselves spread-eagled like a starfish and slowly, agonisingly he began to float off the ground, back glued to the wall of a great, creeper-shrouded crypt.
"Revelatus." she murmured.
His cowl fell back, revealing his bared, gritted teeth, narrowed fearful eyes. Medusa took a long, shivering breath. Years had gone by, but really…nothing much had changed.
Including Severus Snape.
"So!" he breathed from his strangled windpipe. "It's true! You're out…"
"Don't sound so surprised, Severus. I might start to suspect something." she drawled.
He laughed, wheezing through her magic.
They both knew perfectly well that the time had passed when Medusa would have begun to suspect betrayal from her comrades.
Still, it did not pay to anger her; they both knew it.
"What are you doing here?" asked Severus suddenly.
"What are you doing here?"
"Shouldn't you be off hiding?"
"Shouldn't you be off hiding?"
Silence again.
Severus laughed again.
"He'll kill you, if he finds you here."
"Maybe he will. Maybe he won't," shrugged Medusa, tightening the magic around Snape's throat and making him cough, making his breath whistle and the veins in his pasty forehead stand out. "After all, he's letting a little traitor like you run around…"
"I'm not a traitor. I was spying…for the cause…" insisted Snape.
"Don't…lie…to me," she said, increasing her stranglehold. " about things we both know I know. We both know what part I had to play in your first defectation. We both know that you were no spy…"
"Yeh-es…" hissed Snape. "Which is why you should…be…careful….how…you treat…me…"
The strangulation stopped. Medusa chuckled softly in the darkness. Then the magic eased up and Snape fell to the ground wheezing and gulping in huge breaths of air.
"You always were a little snake." she said. Then, bending down and taking a handful of his greasy hair in her fist, she pulled back severely and whispered, "Make sure you don't bite the hand that feeds, Professor Snape. You owe me twice over for saving your neck, cousin. Twice. Not once. Make sure you don't forget…"
"I haven't, cousin!" spat Snape, the veins in his forehead standing out with strain. "But you might find me a less useful servant than you intend me to be. They don't trust me, Medusa…"
"Ha!" she croaked. "I'm not buying your service, Severus. We both know that service requires loyalty and yours is, at best, whimsical…"
"Why, then, do you have a handful of my hair in your fist?" he hissed.
"I want your silence, Snape. Your silence on our…little arrangement the first time around…"
"If I reveal your treachery I reveal mine. Why would I…?" he whispered.
"To be sure," she agreed. "But all the same…Keep. Your. Mouth. Shut…"
"I see you've found your old plaything," said a voice from behind her.
It's Bella! We're dead! They've got us! They've got us! shrieked Jabber.
Ssssssh! Quiet…be still…Remember how to be feared… murmured Hiss coldly. Remember that you are supreme here…Bella is brainless for all her bloodiness…and we…together…we're an invincible mind…
Medusa took a second to control the sudden burst of gall that had injected itself into her blood stream. "Do you mind?" she spat. "I'm in the middle of something, here, Bella…Tricks…"
Collective laughter shimmered in the air behind her.
Ah, so the others are here too.
"Careful you don't kill him, darling." interjected Bellatrix, strolling forward languidly. "We all know how…severely opposed to coddling traitors you are and how…hungry….for a kill you must be after your long…long…long…endeavour at Az…kaban…" she didn't hesitate to draw out the name of the place, rubbing it in like shit in a wound. "But our Lord seems to want him around still." Bellatrix gently toed Snape with her boot. "Don't ask me why. It's a horrible waste of Dark Mark…"
She toed Snape with her boot, said Jabber uselessly. She can't do that! He's her cousin! How dare she do that?!
He's a half-breed. A mudblood. She can do what she wants with him and justify it to herself righteously, replied Hiss.
But….but it's …Severus…Cousin Severus… whimpered Jabber.
Flash memories of a sunny day at Hogwarts, Snape hiding behind curtains of black hair as usual, Potter and Sirius flinging clods of mud at him…the stupid, loud-mouthed Lily Evans yelling at them, and Medusa standing off in a corner, watching with bitterness as her darling Sirius broke her heart by breaking Severus…poor Severus, whose mother had made a mistake when she was young and married a muggle who didn't understand, a muggle who beat his own son to 'rid him of the Devil' till he left welts in the boy's back…
That's why Severus never bathed too much. It was unfortunate that his hair got so greasy, but water hurt the broken skin and he was too proud to go to Pomfrey and show her. They'd been at the height of their friendship when he'd come knocking on Medusa's dorm room in second year, asking her for ingredients to make a painkiller potion…
And Sirius knew this! He knew this! As a little girl, Medusa'd been over many a time when Walburga Black had brought up the Snapes and their miserable condition in front of her sons, demanding her boys be kind to Severus.
Regulus was kind. Regulus had always been a sweet darling.
But Sirius…. Sirius had been a bastard, using his own cousin to show off in front his mudblood trash friends…
Just like Bella was using Snape now to show off in front of her pureblood trash friends…
Ridiculous. It had all come full fucking circle.
Laughter again. It broke her train of thought.
Medusa slowly turned to take stock of the situation.
Well, their numbers had certainly fallen, but if anything it was the most dangerous of the Death Eaters who had survived.
In addition to Bella, had come her mirror in male, Rodolphous, tall and broad shouldered, thick black hair swept back, thick black eyebrows arching over his dull, black gaze, and connecting at the ears to his well trimmed chin strap and goatee, grinning and leering, showing his pearlescent, perfectly square teeth as usual. Not far from him was his shorter, skinnier brother Rabastan; the toothy leer, of course, seemed genetic. There stood Augustus Rookwood with his broken nose and thick, curling brown hair, as well as that thug, Walden McNair in his mockery of a kilt and his biker boots. Mulciber and Avery, looking like the East London conmen they were in their youth, Nott and his axe, Electra Rosier with her fiery red hair. Amycus, and his bitch of a sister Alecto, incestuous maggots. Dolohov, teetering drunkenly and smelling of Vodka, as usual. Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle…and of course….her very own favourite Death Eater of all time…Fenrir Fucking Greyback.
There he stood, right behind Bella, at the front of the ranks, drooling and slobbering and staring at her tits. Seventeen years in Azkaban , barely any tits left to stare at…and she'd come full circle to standing in a cold graveyard, with people she hated, having Fenrir Fucking Greyback stare at her fucking tits.
Medusa slowly let go of Snape's robes, allowing him to get to his feet. "Well," she walked forward, past Bella to examine the group at a closer distance. "Is this it? Our numbers have fallen. And there are no new recruits, no young blood." There was a dead silence. "Who's been leading you? Bella?"
Laughter broke out amongst the ranks. Greyback fairly roared with it, his jaw unhinging to reveal the row upon row of canine teeth sprouting out of his gums.
"Well, if you're laughing like that I must be right…" murmured Medusa non-chalantly.
She heard Bella hiss with malice behind her.
"Still saucy after all these years, Medusa?" snorted McNair flirtatiously. Which amused Medusa because she'd never pegged the actions 'snort' and 'flirtatious' to be amassable. But that was McNair for you, sexy in that hairy, pierced, smelly, sweaty, armpit-scratching, phlegm-horking…highlander sort of way…
But just as she had at school, Medusa ignored his advances. She had an angry Bellatrix on her hands.
"How dare you come in here and fling insults about as if you'd never left?!" screeched Bellatrix, grabbing Medusa's arm and spinning her around.
"But I never did leave, Trix," murmured Medusa so quietly, the others had to lean in to listen. "I got thrown into Azkaban and then someone… SOMEONE…" She ran the tip of her wand up Bella's throat to her chin. "…forgot to get me out…"
"It wasn't my prerogative!" snarled Bella, though she swallowed, audibly nervous. "Our Dark Lord did not believe in your loyalty after how…it ended with you two…"
"Oh, but I'm sure you did nothing to further my cause, you poisonous cunt…" Medusa 's hand shot forward wrapping its stony fingers around her cousin's neck.
"STOP HER!" screamed Rodolphous as most of the Death Eater lunged forward, headed by a bounding, half transformed Greyback, grinning in excitement. He'd wanted a piece of Medusa for years…
"INCENDIO!" roared Medusa. Flames exploded upwards from the ground like a wall against the attack, Several of the men yelped in surprise, quickly beating out flames and rolling on the ground. Then, before anyone could really react, Medusa called, "Splayagio!" And Fenrir, halfway through a pounce at her suddenly froze in mid air, his limbs splayed just as Snape's had been only minutes before. Then, "Disecticorum" she murmured.
Hiss and Jabber shrieked and gibbered with excitement.
It was an old favourite of hers that they were all familiar with, so she was not at all surprised, but in fact mightily pleased when several of them gasped in horror and yelled, "No, Medusa! Stop! Stop!"
Fenrir looked highly panicked, eyes rolling in his slack jawed face, then he began to howl with pain as little by little his guts began to split open of their own accord. Blood sprayed from his belly button and trickled down the crotch of his pants as if he'd urinated. The wounds widened and widened. His intestines were crawling out…
"Medusa, you blood-thirsty bitch!" shrieked Alecto. "Stop it!"
"There's no need for that, Medusa. Can't we negotiate?!" asked Rookwood, rather nicely.
Bella screamed, stamping her foot as she had so many times in their childhood when Medusa had cornered her. "Damn you! Damn you to hell!"
We've already been to hell, said Hiss and Jabber in numb unison.
Greyback howled and sobbed and whined like the great beast he was , watching his own stomach leave its casing.
Then…Medusa ended it.
Fenrir fell to the ground, moaning, barely conscious.
Several Death Eaters rushed forward, wands at the ready with healing spells.
"Relax," she drawled coldly. "He's a werewolf. His gut's 'll crawl back in! He'll be right as rain by tomorrow night. You'll see."
"Vulgar display." murmured Electra Rosier weakly. "We are all well aware of your capabilities."
Medusa studied the older witch out of the corner of her eye.
Electra Rosier, elite, aristocratic, scion of one of the oldest, purest bloodlines, sister to Druella Rosier-Black, aunt to Bellatrix, Narcissa and Andromeda, and more than a little genetically responsible for Andromeda's beautiful red hair. Electra was still radiant at sixty, with her curling wine-coloured mane, shot through with silver. Last Medusa had heard, Evan, Electra's beloved only child, had been killed in the name of the Tom's Pureblood cause. Evan had been one of Medusa's closest friends. He'd been the very picture of perfection, with his porcelain skin, laughing mouth and ruby hair, the apple of his mother's eye as well as the eyes of many a sighing Hogwarts school girl too. Cherubic in look and devilish in nature, even Morgana ( the succubus!) had doted on him.
But Evan had trusted Medusa…possibly because she had been the only girl in the school who wasn't in love with him. Medusa had been otherwise preoccupied with a certain dark-haired rascal…and Evan had forsaken no chance to tease her about it.
She missed him.
She missed him and pitied his mother. There was a time when she had greatly respected Electra, but now that had dwindled down to distant pity…and resentment. Resentment with a woman who had not realised that her son might actually die out of duty to Tom Riddle. Anger with a woman who grieved but still stubbornly refused to admit something two much younger, weaker women, Narcissa and Morgana, had admitted…
This war…This fight…wasn't worth their sons' lives.
"What's it to you, Electra?" said Medusa, still respectful, but years in Azkaban had dwindled her patience short.
Rosier smirked. "Nothing," she replied calmly. "I couldn't care less about Greyback, but such a vulgar display falls short of my expectations of you. That move was worthy of a LeStrange…" the older woman's lips quirked upwards. She didn't even need to turn around to sense Bella bristle. Then, Rosier's face returned to its stony vacancy and she added, "You lack your usual finesse."
She's withered, Jabber was in awe. Evan's death must have done it…withered her on the inside, dried her up…
She's been in this a long time, said Hiss softly. Wasn't she at school with Tom? She's one of his originals.
But I bet she never expected this to take Evan…to kill her son…Jabber whimpered sadly.
How can she stand to be here? How can she believe that the loss of her son was worth this? Hiss keened wrathfully. We were her son's friend! We ate at her house! We spent nights there! We grew up with Evan and even SHE left us to rot in hell because some mad half-breed she chummed up with at school told her to!
Medusa stared the woman in the eyes. "Azkaban has a way of rubbing finesse out of you."
"Welcome back, if it means anything." Electra shrugged, turning away, her already stony gaze becoming virtually catatonic. "Maybe now we'll get some decent work done."
"Oh yes! Now you warm up, you frigid ice-queen" howled Bellatrix.
Rosier ignored her. Even before their first defeat, Electra had never liked Bella. Neither had Evan, for that matter.
Bellatrix wheeled on the observing Medusa, teeth gnashing hungrily for a confrontation. "So you're back. And already turning the ranks. But have you been around to visit your coward of a sister yet? Is she still picking off unsuspecting men like a carrion crow?"
Both Hiss and Jabber snarled and spat and shrieked in outrage at the defecation of Morgana's mention in Bellatrix's mouth.
Medusa merely raised her eyebrows. "Unsuspecting men? They're hardly unsuspecting the seventh time around at the alter. Morgana has enough notches on her bedpost to ward off any man with half a brain cell and a healthy portion of ego. It's hardly her fault if they come a-calling anyway, the idiots. And if they're up for the challenge, they take the risks that come with it. You know that."
"Do I." laughed Bellatrix.
"You're just all green on the inside. You always were jealous, Trix. You've hated Morgana for her charms, since the moment your parents took her in and finally experienced the pleasure of having a sane child in the house."
"SANE?!"
"And I can tell you Andromeda and Narcissa appreciated an elder sister figure who wasn't going to stab them in the back, at any moment, either…"
Bellatrix started and stared at Medusa .
We know what you did to your sister… TRAITOR…crooned Jabber.
We're going to kill you…promised Hiss
Medusa smiled.
Bella eyed her worriedly, as if suspecting some of the many, many thoughts maliciously languid behind the smile. "Huh." she finally barked. "Claim all you want that your jezebel sister's sane…lot of good may it do her. She obviously got the lion's share of the both of you! You implying that I'm insane…that I'm a back-stabber…YOU, of all people…"
Rudolphus had been hanging back before this, but now he come to his wife's defence, putting his thick beefy arm around her bony waist. "Pot calling the kettle black again, Medusa?" he said, baring his pearly whites.
"Can't be a case of name-calling if her last name is BLACK, Rudy." murmured Medusa, turning to walk away.
Several of the observing Death Eaters chuckled to themselves. McNair actually clapped his huge hairy hands, shaking his head in wonder.
Greyback giggled hysterically, from where he lay on the ground, floundering in the soup of his own innards.
"Och, Dusa, cairling…"growled McNair. "Scorpion-barbed. After all this time?"
"Haven't you asked me that already tonight, McNair?" Medusa rolled her eyes as she walked past him. "Please. At least attempt to switch up your come-ons once per evening…"
"Raised by Lucius Malfoy," laughed Rookwood. "What did you expect, Walden? I've only ever met his son once, in his first year, long before our Lord inducted him, and the little snot was just as much of a brat as this one…"
He put his hand down on Medusa's shoulder.
Ask now, hissed Hiss.
"So where are they?" said Medusa.
Rookwood and McNair lost all signs of mirth. "Who?" Rookwood looked pale enough to indicate that he knew exactly who she was talking about.
The conversations happening in the background suddenly faded into silence. The Death Eaters watched, frozen. Medusa had a sudden mental image of a pack of haggard, rabid, winter-starved wolves, coats in varying shades of brindled shadow, eyes gleaming dispassionately in the darkness.
Be careful, begged Jabber.
"Well?" urged Medusa. "Where are the Malfoys? "
No reply. Some looked around nervously, wondering whether anyone was going to volunteer to tell.
Bellatrix frowned, looking confused.
You shouldn't have hinted that you knew about Narcissa, said Jabber with sudden clarity. If you know about Narcissa, you've been to the manor. If you've been to the manor, then you know how things are with the Malfoys….
Play it through, advised Hiss. You let nothing solid slip. And Bella's been guilty of enough crimes to think that her own mind might have jumped to her own most recent abberition when you were merely making a passing comment about her general behaviour…
Still, you must be more careful in the future… whispered Jabber.
Medusa's eyes blazed as she rounded on her old crew, striding forward into their midst, her robes flying in the cold night air.
"Cat got your tongues?" She snarled, grinning. "Someone speak up; I smell a killing coming on."
Alecto backed away from her in alarm. Even Rosier looked worried.
"Where's Lucius?"
"Why do you want to know?" asked Rudolphus suddenly.
"Lucius was like a brother to me," Medusa said. "And he left me to rot in Azkaban. Let's just say, Rudy, that I have a bone to pick with him…"
Rudolphus snorted and relaxed. "We don't know where Lucius is."
What? snapped Hiss.
"I beg your pardon?" Medusa gave the Death Eaters her most disgusted look yet.
Oh! moaned Jabber. If THEY don't know where he is then we'll certainly never find him…we have no lead!
At least it means he's safe. And Draco's safe…
"We don't know where the traitor is." Bella rushed into the fray.
"Traitor? Lucius?"
"Yes." smirked Bella. "I always knew he was worthless scum…I told Narcissa that, when she wanted to marry him, but would she listen to reason?"
Stupid bitch, shrieked Hiss laughing hysterically. If a man wasn't your darling Rudolphus you'd itch to kill him just for having testicles…
She only hates Lucius because he used to put her and her husband in their place, Jabber replied. And Voldemort preferred Lucius over Bella…no matter how hard she tried….
"Interesting." was all Medusa actually said.
"Interesting?" Rookwood raised an eyebrow. "Medusa! Not going to blow a fuse over your beloved Lucius being a hunted man?"
"Rookwood….may I remind you yet again…AZKABAN…"
"Yes, yes, alright." he grinned, but it was obvious; he remained suspicious.
They're not buying it, murmured Hiss.
They'll buy it for now… Jabber shrugged.
They'll pretend to buy it for now…which buys us time, thought Medusa.
And that was when Amycus suddenly came running back into their midst, gasping for breath and bent double.
"He's here!" stuttered Amycus. "Lord Voldemort is in our presence."
Medusa felt His presence even before the Death Eaters fell silent. Jabber and Hiss seemed mysteriously absent, as well, and perhaps it was their silence in her head that alerted her of Tom Riddle's arrival more than anything external, though she could have sworn the already chilly temperature had dropped about five degrees.
She involuntarily felt her entire body convulse with a mixture of orgasmic excitement and fear.
But the fear was a high…a well-loved, thrilling high…like a demented knight who'd religiously crawled in the dark for years to finally come face to face with the mighty, bloated dragon…only to realise that it, too, had been eagerly awaiting his arrival.
Here was the dragon, breathing in the darkness.
Snape had come to stand at her side and she hadn't even noticed. Now, he gripped her arm lightly and murmured, "For your own sake, I hope you're as clever as we always thought you were."
"Dear Severus…" Medusa leered in the darkness. "Have I failed you yet?"