A/N: Thanks for your reviews guys, the next chapter will be the last in this epic 2 week saga.
The Years that Followed the Morning After.
by Flaignhan.
After the immediate anger had subsided, he turned to the few followers who had bothered to show up.
"Lucius, where is your father?"
"Dead, my Lord."
Voldemort closed his eyes, took a deep breath and continued. "And Arcturus? Where is he?"
"Also dead, my Lord," Lucius answered, looking towards the ground.
"My two most loyal followers, dead. And yet here I am, alive. Do you know how much your father sneered when I told him I would one day be immortal? It seems that Lord Voldemort has been proved right once again. Though what am I left with? Pathetic excuses of wizards. You're not half the wizard your father was, Lucius. You will amend the situation."
"Yes, my Lord, of course, my Lord."
"Very well. I take it our base remains undetected?"
"As far as I'm aware, my Lord."
"As far as you're what?"
There was a crack as Severus Snape appeared in the graveyard, and Voldemort turned around.
"My Lord, I apologise for my lateness –"
"Your lateness? Or your desertion?" Voldemort hissed.
Snape's expression remained blank. "Potter has informed Dumbledore of your return," he continued. "And the Minister," he said the title with disdain, "has seen to it that Barty Crouch will no longer be of any use to our cause."
Voldemort's red eyes narrowed. "Come come, Severus, lower your defences..."
There was silence as Snape seemed to do as he was told, and eventually Voldemort seemed satisfied. "We shall return to Myre Creek," he informed the circle. "Come, all of you."
They left Little Hangleton in a flurry of black and reappeared in a large hallway, still as clean and well maintained as the day Lord Voldemort had last stood there.
"Emily?" he called, "come here."
There was no response. Voldemort turned to his followers. "Where is she? Has she left?"
Many awkward glances were exchanged, though all of them avoided meeting their master's eye.
"Severus, answer me."
Snape paused momentarily, looking for the right words. "I'm afraid Emily is no longer with us, my Lord."
"What do you mean?" his voice was calm – too calm.
"She was...murdered, my Lord."
"Lies."
"Arcturus and my father found her, my Lord. She had had her throat slit while she was working. I'm sorry, my Lord," Lucius stepped back, having said his piece.
"Lies!" he repeated in a hiss. "Lies!"
"It was the night you went to the Potters', my Lord," Snape went on to explain, "when the news came about...your disappearance, Abraxas went to tell her, only he was too late, hours too late."
Red eyes searched black ones, eventually finding the information that confirmed Snape's words.
"Who did it?" he demanded.
"We don't know, my Lord. By the time Arcturus and Abraxas found her, the killer was long gone. We thought, perhaps it might have been something to do with your absence –"
"Don't be foolish, Severus. Somebody who had access to this house murdered Emily, and if that person is still idiotic enough to be alive, then I will see to it that their circumstance changes."
A tense silence fell over them, and finally it was Lucius who spoke.
"She is buried in the garden, my Lord. Down the end, under the beech tree."
"In the garden?"
"It was done properly, my Lord," Lucius stammered. "My father and Arcturus saw to it that it was done with the greatest of respect –"
"Leave me," he whispered.
They didn't need telling twice, and less than a moment later, he was standing alone, looking at, but not seeing the detailed wooden panels on the wall. He gripped the wooden bannister with one large pale hand and climbed the stairs slowly.
He pushed open the door to her bedroom, and immediately her flowery scent filled his nostrils. He paused before stepping inside, shutting the door behind him.
A book was lying open on the bedside cabinet, she'd probably gone to fetch a glass of pumpkin juice. The chair at her desk was at an odd angle, a pair of high heeled black ankle boots on the floor next to it, having only been pulled off a few moments ago. The drawer of her desk was slightly ajar, reams upon reams of parchment visible through the small crack.
Her boomerang had been laid on the surface of her dressing table, next to a bottle of perfume, the scent of which hung in the air. She may have just sprayed it. Perhaps she had known he was returning and thought that it would be best that she were in perfect condition for him.
"Where have you been?"
"Throwing my boomerang."
"Why?"
"I like it."
"Why?"
"It always comes back."
He picked up the ornately framed photo that stood on the dressing table. Taken in his seventh year it showed him, as a teenager, forcing out one of those genuine smiles that used to make her go dizzy. She was biting her lip coyly, her eyes sparkling as she looked into the camera, arms wrapped around his waist, head resting against his chest.
He sat down at the desk and waited for her to come back, she wouldn't be long. She was never away from him for long, not unless he ordered her to be. She was probably visiting friends who would look at her youthful glow with bitter envy.
Perhaps she was visiting that sister of hers.
The carriage clock on the mantelpiece told him that it was after midnight. His lipless mouth pressed into a thin, impatient line. How many times had he told her to make sure she was home before dark? There were too many people that wanted to harm her, believing they could use her as leverage against him.
"Oh come off it, that's not how they work. They know I'm no murderer."
"You're a murderer by association, my dear. The Order of the Phoenix would not think twice about hurting you."
Emily frowned. "Really?"
"Really, so make sure you are always home by nightfall."
She nodded, and left him in his study.
He opened the bottom drawer of her desk and pulled out two crystal tumblers and a bottle of Firewhiskey. He uncorked it and poured a generous amount into each glass before setting the bottle back on the desk. He raised one of the glasses to his mouth, sipping at the burning liquid, not feeling a thing as it trickled down his throat.
"Let me try," she said, holding out her hand for a glass.
"Sweetheart, you're not nearly old enough to be touching this stuff," Arcturus said, keeping the bottle and the three glasses well out of her reach.
"Tom, make him," she said, turning to him, waiting expectantly for him to do something.
"If she wants to try let her try," he said, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her towards him. His hands slipped under her shirt (his shirt, actually) to rest on the smooth skin of her stomach and she leaned back against his chest, making herself comfortable.
"Oh I see how it is," Abraxas said, "all it takes is a fluttering of eyelashes and you'll do whatever you're asked."
Tom smirked, saying nothing in reply.
"Or is it that we have to have sex with you, and then you'll give us whatever we desire?"
"If you ever even attempt to have sex with me," Tom warned, "you will be very sorry indeed."
"Yeah," Emily added. "Get your own piece of meat, he's mine."
Tom smirked against the skin of her neck, his eyes meeting with Abraxas' slightly surprised ones.
Eventually Arcturus passed a glass of Firewhiskey her way. She didn't flinch when she tried it, and so he forgave her for her possessive remark.
He ran one long finger along the edge of the desk, then lifted it up to inspect it. There was no dust. The entire house was in pristine condition.
"How long would you say a good Cleaning Charm lasts?" she asked him, bobbing on her toes slightly, wand held behind her back.
"Since when did you care about Cleaning Charms? You always said the very thought of household charms makes you want to vomit."
"I know," she said, "but seeing as we're here for a while, and none of your puppies seem to be making any effort to keep things clean I thought I'd better take a look at some. How long do they usually last?"
"I...a month or so. I'm busy, can't you go to Diagon Alley and get a book on it?"
"I've tweaked one slightly. And by my calculations – and you know my calculations are always right, you can even double check if you like – this one I'm about to cast should last about three centuries."
He put his quill down and turned around in his seat to give her his full attention. "Three centuries?"
She handed him a long reel of parchment, and eventually he found the scarlet circle which denoted the boundaries of all the relevant information. His barely-there eyebrows rose as he worked through it all in his head and found no fault.
"You could probably apply the same theory to any spell," Emily told him proudly. "Now do you see why I'm bothering you?"
His thin lips curved into a smile and he placed the parchment on his desk. "I'm going to keep a hold of this," he told her.
"Okay," she said. "I'm going to cast my charm, don't worry if everything suddenly looks nice, there's no reason to panic." She turned around, pulling open the door of his study.
"Emily," he called after her.
She stopped and turned back to him.
"I'm glad you're here."
"Really?"
"Really," he confirmed.
She couldn't have looked more pleased.
The carriage clock on the mantelpiece now told him that it was almost four in the morning. He swirled the last of his Firewhiskey around in the bottom of his glass before downing it.
If she was alive, she would have come to find him. She would have helped him and this long wait for his return to power would not have been necessary.
If she was alive, his absence would have been a mere month, perhaps a little more.
If she was alive, she wouldn't leave him waiting like this, draining glass after glass of Firewhiskey on his own.
If she was alive, there would be no faint traces of blood on the desk where even the most powerful cleaning charm had been unable to clean up after a murder.
He set his glass down on the desk and picked up the photograph in his lap.
Taking one last look at wavy brown hair and mischievous blue eyes, he opened the top drawer of the desk, put the picture face down inside it and locked it.
He got up and left the room, locking the door behind him.
He paused at the window at the end of the hallway, and looked out into the garden. Down below in the dark, he could see a large stone tomb, though the light was not good enough to make out the etchings on it.
He travelled down the stairs quickly, taking one last look around at the house that he had lived in for over twenty years with Emily.
After that, he left Myre Creek for good.