Thanks for the amazing 9 reviews! Some think she'll change sides, some are worried she'll go straight back to Azkaban... I guess you'll just have to wait until you find out ;) Someone worried that it might be even worse and she'll get expelled, though. I can assure you, there'll be nothing that drastic :P

It was a beautiful day, I thought. Not necessarily because of good weather or warmth (we had a bit of both at this beginning of May), but because I was allowed outside. It had been outrageous to say the least that Tom had forbidden me from going to work. After all, someone had to do it – and so he had decided that I could work from Malfoy Manor just as well. Rita Skeeter had found that oddly hilarious and had suggested various possible headlines for the affair until I forbid her from ever mentioning it again.
Today, though, I had managed to convince him. I had pretended to have trouble sleeping again – which was only true so far as I had indeed slept badly last night – and something similar to a guilty conscience had lead him to allowing me outside to shop to get a Sleeping Draught from the apothecary.

So it was that I strolled along Diagon Alley when I ran into Yaxley. He smiled broadly at me and I stopped reluctantly.

"Why, hello."

"Lorraine! What a pleasant surprise! The confinement is done, then?"

I raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't think so. I'm out due to a bit of luck on my part."

"That's funny," he said, suddenly frowning. "Cause I could swear I just saw Bellatrix down the street."

"You did?" I said. "That can't be right, I know for sure she's still at Malfoy Manor. At least she was when I left."

Had he let her out, too, then? But that seemed so unlikely; he had been the angriest at Bellatrix.

"I didn't talk to her, but I thought I saw her talking to Travers..."

That was really weird. Why would she be out? Would Bellatrix ever dare disobey Tom? Probably not, at least not in a way that was as blatantly obvious as this.

"Maybe we should check on them," I suggest to Yaxley, who shifted uncomfortably at the thought of getting in the way of Bellatrix Lestrange.

"I don't know, she was surely-"

"I'm just worried. The Dark Lord didn't want her out of the Manor – you don't want to be the one to disobey him, do you?"

"No," he said at once. "Of course not."

"Well, then, let's-"

But we did not need to go even a step further. For on that very moment the screams started. The echoed loudly from further down Diagon Alley, and it soon became very obvious why. With a horrible clash, the doors of the Gringotts bank were hurled away and burst into pieces.
I stared, completely stunned as from the depth of the bank, an enormous beast emerged; the dragon staggered onto the street as it gave a horrible screech. It spread its pale, spiked wings and with great effort, it to hurled itself into the sky.

"Are there – are there people on its back?" Yaxley shouted across the screams.

By now, people were running our way, almost stumbling over each other in their haste to flee from the dragon. The beast, itself, though, did not care for wizards and witches; higher and higher it rose into the sky.

"Do you think it broke free?"

I swallowed hard as the pieces began to fit together in my mind. Bellatrix, here, even though she shouldn't be. A dragon – which I knew the goblins were more than capable to control under normal circumstances – breaking free, carrying people on its back.

"I think someone found a very efficient way to escape."

Yaxley eyes widened. "You think someone broke into Gringotts?"

"No matter," I said. "Go back to the Ministry, we need Obliviators all over London, Muggles everywhere will have seen that dragon."

"But-"

"Go," I ordered. "Now, Yaxley, please."

I did not stay to watch him disapparate. Instead, I pushed my way through the crowd rushing in the opposite direction. When I reached the gates of the bank, I saw the full amount of destruction. The floor was almost completely destroyed where the dragon must have broken through it on its way outside.

A rather shaky wizard hurried towards me. "Out, out, please, we don't-"

"It's Lorraine Riley," I interrupted him harshly. "I wish to know what happened."

The goblin's eyes widened, but he still hesitated. "Madam Riley, of course, but-"

"They broke in?" I inquired, hoping to inspire him to talk. "Which vault?"

"I'm in no position?"

"Which vault?"

"The Lestrange's, Madam, an impostor-"

"What did they take?"

"Madam-"

"What did they take?" I yelled.

"Just a small golden cup," the goblin squeaked, visibly afraid of my reaction.

I could not help the sudden coldness that filled me. So I had been right. They had broken into the Lestrange's vault – it had been Harry Potter, no doubt. Maybe they had been looking for the sword, maybe they had known about the cup all along – but they had been in there and they had sure found the cup and now they-

"Thank you," I said, before turning on the spot. Tom needed to know this now.

Tom gave a scream full of desperation and fury that made me flinch violently. Blazing red eyes suddenly focused on me. "You," he growled. "You made me hide it there-"

"Don't be ridiculous," I said, taking a few steps back in the hope of evading his fury. "If it hadn't been there, they'd have broken into my house instead."

"They would have never known!" he yelled furiously, stalking towards me.

"Tom," I breathed. "This doesn't help us now."

"It is your fault..."

"We need to check on the others," I tried to reason. "Make sure they're still in place. Just imagine they found them as well-"

He froze suddenly, his wand still pointed dangerously straight at my throat. "You're right," he said abruptly, though that did not prompt him to lower his wand.

"You're right, we need to check."

"Good," I said carefully. "How about I got Little Hangleton, see about the ring, after all I hid it-"

"I'm going to check on the locket. Nagini stays with me..."

The snake slithered across the floor to curl around his feet. I nodded stiffly.

"We'll meet again in an hour, right here," he added as he looked down at Nagini.

"They can't have found them all," I said, attempting to reassure myself as much as him. "It's impossible."

"Just go," he said forcefully and then strode outside, the snake following on his heel.

I took a deep breath and rested my head on the wall behind me for a few moments before I, too, was on my way.

The old shack on the very edge of Little Hangleton was even more rotten now than when I had hidden the ring back in the day. I looked around to make sure no one was watching me, but it was a pointless notion in my opinion. No one, villager or traveller, would ever look twice at this shack, half-hidden by the trees growing around it. In fact, I bet most people chose to ignore it. It was the sort of place you did not want to come too close to.

I, however, walked towards the front door, careful not to rip my cloak on the scrub I waded through.
I reached the door and pushed it open, half expecting it to just fall over as it was rather wonky, hanging barely in the hinges. It creaked horribly, too, and I cringed. What a horrible place.

The floor boards creaked as well as I crossed the room for a board on the far back. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust that almost gave me hope. Dust meant that no one had been here – right? I approached the board in question, wondering what exactly Tom had done to enhance the safety of this hiding place. With a wince, I remembered the blood magic he had used to conceal the spot in my house.

I need not have worried. The board in question was split in half, the hole in the floor gaping. For a horrible, long moment I felt like I could not breathe as everything inside of me froze. Then, though, I forced myself forward, wary of what I might find. But there was not anything to be found. The hole where I had hidden the ring was empty and there was no trace of it anywhere.

"No," I breathed. "No. No, no, no."

I waved my wand, blasting the board next to it away. I must have been wrong. It had been another board. For sure. Nothing. I made another one explode. Emptiness. Another and another. No sign of the ring. I yelled out my frustration as the whole floor in front of the door shattered. But there was nothing. Absolutely nothing.
I did not notice the tears until I was outright sobbing. My wand fell, clattering, to the floor as I sank down, too, between the ruins of a ruin.

"No," I whispered. "Oh, please, no."

They knew. They knew and they had known all along and they had gone and stolen them all. Maybe even destroyed them all. They were going to destroy him.

Tom. I had to get back, he was waiting and he needed to know. I struggled to my feet and attempted to brush away the tears with the back of my hand. It was no use crying over spilt potion. If Harry Potter wanted the fight, we'd give it to him. If there was one thing I knew about Tom, it was that he always won. The boy would know, too, before he'd finally leave this world for good.

Tom's outraged scream greeted me as I entered the Manor again and I had to strain every muscle not to flinch away as he noticed me standing in the doorway.

"The locket's disappeared, too?" I inquired softly.

"Yes. The ring?"

"Gone," I said.

"So they know," he said. "They know and for sure they know where the last one is, too."

"Hogwarts," I breathed. "Yes, of course they know."

Tom was suddenly eerily calm, almost collected; and it scared me more than anything else.

"What do we do now?"

"We gather all the Death Eaters," he said. "And then we go and kill Harry Potter."