"Ah, Miss Havisham. Welcome to my home, I do hope you enjoy your stay with us."

"Thank you, Mister Malfoy. It is very kind of you to have me for the summer."

"Not at all. And please, call me Lucius."

"Well, thank you, Lucius. And I insist that you call me Elizabeth," she said with a smile.

"Having any trouble, Miss Havisham?"

"Uh, no, Mis– Lucius. Oh and it's not 'Miss Havisham'."

"My apologies, Elizabeth."

"That's not what I meant." He frowned at her quizzically. "My real name is Elizabeth Helena Gaunt." His frown deepened.

"Gaunt? As in Marvolo Gaunt?"

"Yes. Well, Morphin Gaunt to be precise. According to Professor Snape, Morphin 'attacked' a Mudblood from the local village. Her son, once told of his routes before attending Hogwarts, assumed his father's name. After completing his education, Rupert Gaunt married Alicia Prewet, a pureblood. They didn't agree with Voldemort's view of the world, and were also not aware of the connection, and went into hiding in the muggle world shortly before my birth. They were killed in some muggle catastrophe and I was adopted by a pair of Muggles who gave me the name Havisham." She sighed. "I detest both sets of my parents. The first for abandoning me in the muggle world and the latter for denying me the right to know who I am."

"Elizabeth."

"Yes, Lucius?" she asked, raising her head to show that she was listening, but not quite tearing her eyes away from the page before her.

"Uh, I have some... um... unfortunate news." She looked up with a frown, she had never heard Mister Malfoy so uncomfortable nor had she ever known him to trip over his words.

"What is it?"

"The, ah, Dark Lord has heard about you." After his initial hesitation, the rest came in a rush.

"Oh, really?" she said, leaning back with a smirk tugging the left corner of her mouth up. "I don't see the problem. Why are you so worried?"

"You're not yet 16– Aren't I allowed to be worried?" he asked, coming to stand next to her chair.

"Of course, you are," she smiled, taking his hands in hers and smiling up at him. He smiled back at her, but there was a look of concern in his eyes.

"Have you brought her?"

"Yes, my lord."

"Stand forth Miss Gaunt." The very young woman stepped into the centre of the circle. She was dressed in long, flowing black robes that left her pale arms exposed. "Ah, yes," he hissed.
"I have heard much of you. Star pupil, extraordinary dueller, excellent flyer, gifted Occlumens..." he let the sentence trail off as he circled her, surveying her. Elizabeth hoped he was not probing her mind or he would see how much his source had exaggerated her abilities.
"Now, Miss Gaunt, are you ready to join my ranks?" A smirk tugged at her mouth as she answered:

"Yes, my lord." She swept him a deep bow and remained on her knees before him. He took hold of her left arm and pulled his yew wand from within his robes.

"Do you solemnly swear to follow my orders, even if they lead you to certain death?"

"I do."

"Will you conform to the ideals of the group and uphold them until your life's end?"

"I will."

"Are you confident in purpose and strong in resolve? Are you ready to take any responsibility I accord you?"

"I am." Once she had responded that final time, he placed his wand to her arm and the living tattoo appeared.

"Welcome, my cousin." He raised her to her feet and kissed her on the cheek.

"My dear," whispered Zabini. "The Dark Lord wishes to see you immediately. In his private chambers." She made her way along the labyrinthine passages and knocked on the door. It swung open, seemingly of its own accord, and she entered.

"Elizabeth. Just the person I wanted to see." She came towards where he was sat on a sofa and he indicated that she should sit beside him. "As we are all painfully aware, Lucius failed abysmally at the ministry. I only hope you can do a better job in his place." And without any warning, he leaned in and kissed her deeply.

"Lucius. So glad to see you with us again and so kind of you to host us in your charming manor," Elizabeth purred from her position on Voldemort's lap.

"M-my pleasure, Lady Gaunt. I do hope you enjoy your stay with us." Suddenly, Elizabeth was twelve again and she had arrived at this house for the first time, so thankful that she would not be forced to return to her adoptive parents.

"I'm sure we will," she smirked, stroking Voldemort's chest.

"Draco. You failed me," said the Dark Lord in a tone that held too much pleasure for either of the spies' comforts. The only time that tone of voice was genuine, and safe, was when it was used towards Elizabeth or Bella. However, Narcissa barged in before Draco could react, never mind respond.

"Please, my lord! Spare my son!"

"Narcissa, tell me, what service have you ever done me? Elizabeth serves me unswervingly, yet she would not degrade herself so as to beg for her child. Would you, my dear?" The contempt in his voice as he spoke to Narcissa was clearly audible, but so was the loving tenderness when he addressed Elizabeth, however twisted it seemed.

"I wouldn't have to, my son would be loyal to his father," she said, her voice a lazy, salacious drawl, but her eyes were alight with something indiscernible.

"Have you anything to report, Severus?"

"Only the usual, my lord," the spy replied. The Dark Lord gave the man a long, hard look, before turning to his lover. But before he could comment, his servant spoke again. "Except, of course, that they are moving Potter next week." Elizabeth laughed, uproariously, it seemed to Severus that she was trying to cover something awkward.

"Honestly, Severus, you are absolutely dreadful!" She was looking her fellow double-agent straight in the eye with something more akin to worry than joy. "We can finally get him." There was a disconcerting undercurrent of macabre pleasure in her voice as she spoke of Potter.

"Yes, my dear," said Voldemort with satisfaction.

"Lady Gaunt."

"Yes," she snapped, irritably.

"It's the Dark Lord, ma'am."

"Yes?" she asked, her voice softened by concern.

"He's gone."

"Where?"

"I don't know. He just went." She had dismissed him with a wave of her hand but inside she was cursing furiously.

"We shall proceed to the school," she ordered with a sneer on the last word, hoping that the Order were ready.

She had to stop him, she couldn't just stand there and let him kill Severus. However, when she tried to move, she found that she couldn't. A glance at Severus told her why.
As he crumpled in a heap on the floor, she had to suppress a sob.

"Come, my dear."

"I am a little weary," she said in smooth but tired voice. "Besides, I should stay, until he is fully dead. I shall come once it is done." And she kissed him, standing over the body of the man she loved, she kissed his murderer and the monster believed it.

Once Voldemort was gone, she dropped to her knees next to him and, to her surprise, was soon joined by Potter, Hermione and the Weasel. Severus made a heart-wrenching rasping, gurgling noise in his throat and the boy-who-lived-to-vex bent down, seemingly unconscious of her presence. Her beloved pulled the fool close and sputtered:

"Take... it... Take... it." It was then that she saw the billows of silver mixed with crimson; Slytherin's secondary mingling with Gryffindor's primary, she thought as she watched detachedly. Once Potter had filled the flask to the brim with her darling's memories, the latter loosed his grip on the boy's robes and slumped back, his head falling so as to look straight at her.

"Eli... zabeth..., I... I love... you," he whispered with what should have been his last breath. She pushed Potter aside and kissed Severus full on the mouth.
Muggles call mouth-to-mouth resuscitation the 'Kiss of Life', but it can hardly compare to the potion of that name which Elizabeth had smeared on her lips earlier that night for just such an eventuality. While that potion was keeping him invigorated, she pulled a flask from the inner pocket of her robes. It was as she was massaging it into neck that she realised that the Gryffindor triumvirate were still there.
Then her lord's voice rang out all around them, she was really beginning to regret having taught him that one, he liked it way too much.

"You have fought valiantly. Lord Voldemort knows how to value bravery. Yet, you have sustained losses. If you continue to resist me, you will all die, one by one. I do not wish this to happen. Every drop of magical blood is a loss and a waste. Lord Voldemort is merciful. I command my forces to retreat, immediately. You have one hour. Dispose of your dead with dignity. Treat your injured.
"I speak now, Harry Potter, directly to you. You have permitted your friends to die for you, rather than face me yourself. I shall wait for one hour in the Forbidden Forest. If, at the end of that hour, you have not come to me, have not given yourself up, then battle recommences. This time, I shall enter the fray myself, Harry Potter, I shall find you and I shall punish every last man, woman and child who has tried to conceal you from me. One hour."

"My goodness, a whole hour," she murmured to herself.

"He... always did... hold you in... high regard."

"Don't speak, Severus. Potter, go! You need to see those memories, I wish we had the time for us to explain it to you, but we don't! Go!" Hermione and Ron looked set to argue. "Look, we're loyal to the Order, I know it hasn't looked that way this last year, but we are. So, trust me and go." They went. She only stayed a few more minutes to help Severus get comfortable and then left to report to Voldemort.

There was no chance he would be fool enough to come, she assured herself. Then the two scouts entered the circle. As Yaxley and Dolohov rejoined the circle, Voldemort looked up.

"No sign of him, my Lord," said Dolohov and Elizabeth smothered a sigh of relief. However, after some mumblings from Bella and Marvolo, the idiotic boy revealed himself.
Elizabeth watched the encounter between the boy and her master with baited breath. Throughout their exchange, she shot numerous glances at Lucius, who was rather pale and looked terrified. When the even stupider Hagrid blundered in, it was she that bound him in place, as Severus had done to her earlier.

When the Dark Lord collapsed, she darted forward and scooped his head onto her lap, even as she implored heaven for him to be dead.

"That will do," bit out Voldemort in response to Bella's mewling.

"My lord," whispered Elizabeth in a loving tone that she did not feel like bestowing on him at that moment. The Dark Lord paused in getting to his feet, as his concerned Death Eaters scattered, to kiss her and then pulled her up with him.

After Grawp, the civilians, the centaurs and Longbottom slaughtering Nagini had made a nice distraction, everyone bundled into the school. Elizabeth kept close, very close, to the Dark Lord. She saw his spells, and hers for sake of pretence, bounce away from several of the students. Potter was evidently in the vicinity and it was not long before he had stepped out to meet Voldemort.

"I don't want anyone else to try to help," ordered Potter, loudly, and in the total silence his voice carried to everyone. That is not to say, that everyone obeyed him; Elizabeth had her orders, as much as she hated the idea of killing her lover.

'He tried to kill Severus.
'He said he regretted it.
'Yes, but his greed for power won out.
'And you'll be next, if he's not stopped.'

"Accident and chance and the fact that you crouched and snivelled behind the skirts of greater men and women and permitted me to kill them for you!"

"You won't be killing anyone else tonight," said Potter.

"And neither will you," said Elizabeth, stepping up behind Voldemort, though she had made sure that he could not hear her. "Goodbye, my darling," she whispered, a hand stretched out towards the monster, and then her wand swept through the air. "Avada Kedavra!" she roared, a flash of green light lit the whole hall and Voldemort fell down dead.

"You traitor!" roared an incandescent Greyback, who had managed to free himself from the Weasel and Longbottom. He launched himself at Elizabeth and she dashed from the hall with him in hot pursuit. He finally tackled her to the ground when they reached Fiereze's classroom.

"One chance," she hissed in her lover's voice. "Get off me now or die!" He had gone for her throat and, with a strength she didn't know she had, she wrenched him down by his neck, while she powered her left palm into his shoulder. There was a sickening crunch as his shoulder came out of its socket. The werewolf let out a howl of pain, but then lunged at her anew and she scratched at his throat with her long, manicured nails. They had been fighting tooth and claw, literally, for nearly ten minutes when a yell from the door distracted Greyback.

"Sectumsempra Magnum!" Fenrir collapsed on top of her, turned into ribbons by the curse. "I thought I told you to stay put," she said, mock-sternly, as she calmly got out from under what was left of the werewolf's carcass.

"I'm sorry." She glanced at his neck.

"The potion had already done its work." He gaped at her speechlessly and then, when he tried to speak again, naught but a gargling noise came from him. She swore, but, as the Apparation wards were still down, she grabbed him and took him to the Irish wizarding hospital.
Three weeks later, once the immediately fixable wounded had been cleared, he was transferred to St Mungo's.