A/N: Thank you for all the favorites, follows, and reviews!

I am so sorry at how long this took to get out. These last few weeks have been difficult. As always, I try to keep up to date information in my profile about story updates.

6

Previously:

"Until that day comes where my name alone affords you protection, I will never stop fighting with you about being in danger. Do not scare me again. I can't lose you. This is my second chance and I will not waste it."

"What the hell does that even mean?" She demanded angrily, her aroused body denied any more friction.

"Marry me and you will find out."

**HGHG**

Bellatrix watched as Lucius held the Mudblood against the door and rolled her upper lip in disgust. It all made sense now, how Lucius never had a good relationship with Narcissa. It also explained why Narcissa was hiding those memories so faithfully. The fool was in love with Lucius still. Bellatrix stayed in the shadows of the corridor and watched as Lucius murmured to his tart, the little whore that panted after him. She wondered how long that was going on for. Did the little slut proposition the dangerous Mr. Malfoy while in school? Lucius should have known better than to allow such filth into his bed and bloodline.

When Lucius pulled away from the Mudblood, Bellatrix followed them further into the Manor. It wouldn't do, she thought, to not keep an eye on them now that she knew something was going on between them. She relished the moment that she could say 'I told you so' to Narcissa. It was a foolish mistake to get caught up in the Malfoys as the Black family soon learned. Bellatrix knew more than most about the state of her sister's marriage and her nose flared with fury. Surely Narcissa would leave him now. Marry someone actually worthy of one of the famed Black sisters. Oh, but after the way Narcissa had been treated by Voldemort, Bellatrix knew she would have to be sneaky in her plans. Narcissa wouldn't just find someone else, especially if Lucius was still alive. Besides, The Dark Lord was protective of Cissy's life, even if he didn't care about her body and mind. She didn't think he would actually marry her off. It was one of the many jealousies that Bellatrix harbored for her sister.

Lucius led the way through the parts of the Manor that had always been warded, so that none could get through it, not even realizing they were being followed. Even after they died, no one came through this part of the Manor, the wards having held so very strongly. Bellatrix frowned. How is Lucius, Draco, and Abraxas even alive? She knew them to be dead. Even Gringotts declared them so. How were they here, alive? She asked herself over and over again. She knew that if she could find out the answers to these questions she would unquestionably be rewarded by Voldemort. She dreamed of the day when he would claim her as his mate and not just his second in command.

She could feel the magic of the wards crackle around her as if it were a sentient being. The decorated hallways gave in to hewn stone and the only decoration was a large painting of a warrior. A man that watched her with narrowed eyes.

"Well, well, well," Sigurd purred. "what do we have here?"

"Who are you?" Bellatrix demanded.

"I am the founder of this house. You are here without invitation. You are a trespasser."

"Why haven't you ratted me out yet?"

"I plan to." Sigurd lazily motioned to a painting she could neither see nor trace. His narrowed gaze watched what she was planning and widened his eyes as she raised her wand to his painting.

With a flourish of her wand, Bellatrix bared her teeth as a feral dog would and watched as Sigurd's painting bubbled and boiled. The man himself fleeing into the unseen painting elsewhere. His voice carried out of his original piece once more.

"What is this?" he hissed.

"Alohamora." She muttered ignoring him. Sigurd's painting continued to be destroyed as Bellatrix strode into the prophecy room. Her smile was exuberant as she took in the rows after rows of silvery memories. Her hands reached out to the nearest ones and began stuffing them into her robes. The woman was nearly dancing as the clink of crystal vials filled the air.

She felt the tingle of magic swirl around her as the room imploded, throwing her and the memories across the room. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of her lips.

**HGHG**

The whole house rocked with the force of the explosion. Abraxas and Lucius were diligently trying to find out a cause. They searched the perimeter of the house, the magical signatures around it and began arguing various theories. Each more fantastic than the next.

"There!" Abraxas said. He was pointing to a room that was right next to theirs. There was a small flicker of life huddled so close to the wall that Narcissa's cot was against that they nearly missed it.

"I will go check it out." Lucius straightened his shoulders and walked out of the room followed closely by Abraxas.

They had only been gone moments before Narcissa seized, convulsing on the small cot they had put her on after she was rescued. Snape was in action the moment Narcissa lost control of her body. Hermione was right behind him. Snape cast a full body bind and watched as she slipped into a coma.

He cast a diagnostic charm that would have any special effects creator in the movie industry salivating. Her internal body structure was floating above her, lit up in different colors. The organs and blood flow moved in real time as Snape traced and searched for whatever was causing Narcissa's illness.

He was snarling to himself, his eyes focus and piercing as his brow furrowed in concern.

"I don't see anything wrong with her." Hermione murmured, also searching over Narcissa diagnostic image.

"That is exactly why I am concerned." He growled at her as if she were incompetent and stupid. He made it seem like he had already come to a conclusion that she was too slow to see.

"Well, spit it out." She growled back.

"Think, Granger! She had been tortured, mind and body for years and yet her body is pristine? How is that possible?"

"Oh." She breathed, thinking. Her face lit up as she looked at him, obviously having thought of something. "Magic!" She blurted, her eyes a bit manic.

"Magic." Snape deadpanned, lifting a single brow indicating that he thought she was a complete idiot.

"Yes! And don't look at me like that!" she angrily spat. "I mean that we should check her magical flow. Can you do that?"

With a snap of his wrist the image changed into webs of golden lines pulsing throughout her body, the only hitch was at her core, a tangled nest of glittering black.

"What is that?" Hermione whispered.

"I have no idea." He muttered, his wand making continuous passes over the diseased web.

**HGHG**

Abraxas and Lucius let the door click shut behind them as they stared at the utter destruction of the Manor. The only thing that kept the room intact was the warding magic that protected it. The two Malfoy men looked out into the empty grounds of their land, the whole of the house in rubble at the foundations. They slowly edged along the inner wall on the ledge that once led to the prophecy room. Magic was unquestionably the only thing that kept them from tumbling to their deaths.

As they approached the door, Abraxas stared at Sigurd's ruined painting in horror. The ancient oak frame was splintered and broken, whole chunks missing from the heavy door. The paint looked as if it had boiled, the bubbles popping and splattering at will on its face.

"What the hell happened?" Abraxas murmured, removing the painting from the doorway and setting it against the wall. He clenched his teeth. Sigurd was such an integral part of the Malfoy line that he couldn't bear to leave his beloved ancestors painting such a mess.

Lucius edged into the room. It looked as if a giant had come and ripped the building away from this room. Half of the room was just gone. Silver liquid splashed on the broken surfaces and edges of the building. The wall that was shared with the observation room held, also leaving enough floor to walk across if one had a death wish and a strong constitution.

Lucius bared his teeth in a primal growl as he spied the witch who had infiltrated the Manor. Bellatrix Lestrange was unconscious, blood dripping from both nostrils and a red puddle spread beneath her comatose body as the wound on her head continued to bleed unchecked.

"Do you think you can still make it to the dungeons?" Lucius asked Abraxas.

"All three of us will have to go but I really don't think we should take Hermione and that means leaving her with Severus and Potter. If another blast comes of this raw magic, we will most likely be separated and unable to get back to the observation room. That will leave us all vulnerable."

"Does it have to be all of us?"

"I think it will take all three of us to open the obsidian door." Abraxas confirmed. Lucius didn't need to be told that it was one of the magics that had been laced in the door at the inception of the creation for the room. Their ancestors needed a place for their enemies that could never be taken, even in the case that the Manor would fall. It would need every living Malfoy's blood to coax it open.

Abraxas flicked his wand in Bellatrix direction and watched as iron chains bound the witch from head to toe. Lucius raised his eyebrows in silent question to Abraxas.

"She has been a pain in my arse for years." Abraxas muttered, not caring a bit that the chains were wrapped rather tightly. So tightly in fact, that they nearly cut of circulation to her extremities. "I will enjoy showing her our dungeon, I think." He mused to himself.

"She has wronged me and mine. I will have her blood." Lucius growled, glaring at his father.

"Watch and learn, Son," Abraxas smirked. "exacting revenge and information is a specialty of mine. A little something that I picked up over the years of playing this little game between Riddle and me."

**HGHG**

Hermione was still watching the ebb and flow of Narcissa's magic. It drew her in as if it were a siren and she, a sailor, in the treacherous seas. Her eyes kept getting pulled back to the small black nodule that thousands of golden lines converged at, as if it were the epicenter of her being.

"Harry, can you come here?" Hermione asked over her shoulder, not even dragging her eyes away from Narcissa's magical flow. He was beside her in seconds, leaving Draco alone to watch the grounds of the Malfoy estate. "Snape, can you run the same diagnostic on Harry?"

With a barely perceptible nod from the focused man, Hermione pushed Harry onto the cot next to Narcissa and laid a hand on his chest to keep him still as Snape waved his wand over him. Hermione barely contained her surprise and wonder as the glittering gold lines weaved and flowed over Harry's body. His magical pulse was bright and strong, his magical core nearly too dazzling to look at. It was magnificent. Hermione noticed the differences right off. Narcissa's magic, though gold, was lackluster in comparison to Harry's. His shined in a way that made her think of better times, where they were all safely ensconced at Hogwarts and largely protected from the tides of war that overtook them in the end.

In the same place that Narcissa's black nodule rested, was the greatest vein and pulse point in Harry's magic. If she had to equate it to anything, she would use the heart as a reference point. The blood is pumped and moved through great arteries and chambers. That is how it looked with Harry's magic. The veins large and small converged but flowed out naturally. Narcissa's magical veins flowed into the black node and never flowed back out.

"Do you see what I am seeing?" Hermione asked Snape. His eyes were riveted on the place in Harry's magical core that Narcissa's node sat.

"What is it that you think you see?" He murmured.

"I need to go to the library." Hermione said, ignoring Snape. She was almost in awe of the various interconnecting webs that showed their magic.

"Sorry sweetheart," Draco murmured from where he stood next to the glowing orb on the pedestal. "I think we are going to have to rebuild that part of the Manor for you. It seems to have been obliterated."

She twisted her body around quickly, her curls whipping Snape in the face. He spluttered and glared at her but she was focused wholly on Draco.

"Obliterated?" She asked wide eyed.

"We will know more when Abraxas and Lucius get back but if I had to make a guess, I would say the only part of the house still standing is this room and the ones underneath it, supporting it."

"How did that happen?" She asked. Draco shrugged. At this point he knew as much as they did.

"What are we going to do about Narcissa? Is there anyone you know that is still alive and has the knowledge to heal this?"

Snape shook his head, deep in thought. The door opened as Abraxas and Lucius walked in carrying Sigurd's door between them.

"Oh, Sigurd." Hermione murmured sadly. "Will you be able to fix him?" she asked them.

"Maybe." Lucius said as they set the wooden panel against the wall.

Abraxas walked up to Draco and muttered something in his ear, both looking grim as he pulled away.

"Can't you just kill her?" Draco whispered just loudly enough for Hermione to overhear.

"She is his second in command. My guess is that she has a lot of information. Things that would be beneficial to us."

Lucius walked over to Hermione setting his large hand in the cradle of her neck and shoulders. His thumb rubbing lightly the skin on her neck. The touch made her shiver as she remembered how volatile he was when angry, as he pressed her into the door and made her feel things she had never felt before. Things that she wanted to feel again.

"What's this?" Lucius asked. He was a knowledgeable wizard that knew what he was seeing but not the why, which is what Hermione assumed he meant.

"When you and Abraxas left the room, Narcissa had a seizure. Snape's diagnostics indicated nothing was wrong so we switched to magical flow. That is when we found that." Hermione indicated the black node in Narcissa's magical core.

"And Potter?" He asked, still staring intensely at the black nodule.

"He is my control. What a normal magical flow looks like."

"His isn't normal either." Lucius muttered.

"What do you mean?" Snape asked, looking up from the two magical cores for the first time since Hermione's hair whipped him in the face.

"Look at how brilliant his magic is, how pure. Look at the speed of regeneration. If Narcissa's is diseased, Potter's is on steroids." he said pointing at the epicenter on Harry. "On a normal person, that vein is not one large ventricle but millions of tiny interconnecting veins that give and take magic all over the body."

"What does that mean?" Hermione asked him, breathing in his scent as he leaned over her to study their magical flows closer.

"I am not sure. Not yet, anyway." He frowned and leaned back, once again rubbing Hermione's neck. He looked at Snape, a heavy silence and unspoken messages between them. "We need to leave Potter, Hermione, and Narcissa with you. It will leave this room and the entire rest of the Manor vulnerable. You will need to be on your guard."

"I do not need a babysitter." Hermione huffed. All the men in the room ignored her.

"I will keep them safe. The vow I made to you that year before you died, still holds. Maybe not magically but we are as good as brothers, are we not?" Snape held Lucius' silver gaze. Lucius smirked, sparing only enough time to lean down and kiss Hermione on her jaw before backing away and leaning in to take quietly to Abraxas.

"I don't need a babysitter!" She said louder.

"We know that Sweetheart," Draco said from across the room, looking conciliatory, his hands in front of him as if she were a wild animal. "My mother needs you here. That is why we didn't ask you to come with us."

"That and we didn't want her to go." Muttered Abraxas. Hermione narrowed her eyes at him. He raised his brow refusing to back down.

"My point is," Draco began a bit louder, shooting annoyed looks at Abraxas. "that we need you here. If that were not the case I know you well enough to know that you would be right next to me, refusing to be left behind. Can you stay? To help my Mum?" His eyes were wide and pleading, the tips of his ears and cheeks coloring pink as everyone watched him plead with her to stay behind.

"I'll stay." She agreed with a displeased sigh. He smiled and moved across the room, leaning over and wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

"Thank you." He murmured into her ear, causing her to blush too, as his lips grazed the shell of her ear. He was just as pink as she was when he pulled away, refusing to meet the amused gazes of Abraxas, Lucius, and unfortunately Snape. Harry's eyebrows were in his hairline, not even sure how to react to it at all. He had never seen this side of Draco. To be honest, neither had Hermione.

"Hermione, a word?" Abraxas asked as Draco and Lucius walked out of the door first. It was their job to retrieve Bellatrix and meet him down on top of the rubble so they could find their way through to the torture chamber that sat several stories deep under the only room left standing. The room darkened as the orb lay dormant on the pedestal.

She left Harry and Snape alone with Narcissa but kept shooting them nervous looks. Their animosity was personal and she didn't trust them not to go off on each other without a buffer. Abraxas pulled her into the farthest corner of the room and pushed her lightly into the darkened corner, his large body covering hers.

She took a deep breath as he took over her space. His hands rose to either side of her head, caging her in. He leaned in slowly as if trying not to spook her or to engulf her in flames of desire. It was hard to tell. Her breathing hitched as she watched his full teasing lips come closer and closer.

"You wanted to talk to me." She barely whispered. She watched as the corners of his lips tilted up, his masculine arrogance showing in every line of his body.

"I really just wanted to get you alone." He purred.

"We aren't alone. Harry and Snape are right over there."

"They can't see anything, Love." Her golden eyes locked with his. She could barely breathe with him so close, so intense. She felt arousal swirl in her stomach as he inched nearer. She couldn't look away from him, from those lips.

"I thought you were going with Lucius and Draco." She murmured.

"Trying to get rid of me?" she could hear the amusement in his tone as his nose rested just under her ear. He inhaled her scent, his lips moving lightly against her neck as he replied.

"No." She wasn't sure if she actually said it or thought it, but it didn't matter. He turned his head, his lush lips sucking and tasting her skin, setting her whole body on fire.

"Merlin." She choked quietly and his deeply satisfied male chuckle reverberated around the room.

"We shouldn't be gone long, Love." He pulled back and used his fingers to touch the red mark he left on her skin. His eyes were burning. A promise that they would continue this 'chat' at a later date. The anticipation had butterflies erupting in her stomach. She braced herself against the wall as he pulled away from her and to the door. His maddening smirk still firmly in place as he walked out of the door.

Hermione slid down the wall in a daze. She stared into the dark abyss of the room, the only light was the glow of Harry and Narcissa's magical cores alight above their bodies. Lucius had disabled the small orb that allowed them to look on to the grounds. Either that or it wouldn't work without a Malfoy in the room. Either way, she sat on the floor a figurative pile of goo as she remembered the feeling of his mouth on her skin. She reached up and touched the spot he had claimed. A smile tugging at her lips.

"If you are done mooning over there, you could make yourself useful and come back over here." Snape barked. Hermione stood and dusted off the back of her robes, slightly smiling as she reentered the glowing light of the pulsing magic.

**HGHG**

The Malfoy men were grumbling and in terrible moods by the time they found the small caved in passage that was supposedly the indestructible tunnel that led to and from the torture chamber. They had been searching among the gravel and debris for the last hour, having to constantly stop and keep their prisoner unconscious while simultaneously trying to remember an obscure part of the house that was never used. When they finally found the tunnel and realized that, yes, the indestructible shaft had indeed collapsed, tempers were running at an all-time high. They were sniping at each other as two worked clearing the wreckage and one trained his wand on the unpredictable yet resourceful witch that they all loathed vehemently. It wasn't just about watching her though, there was also the fact that they were out in the open and they still didn't know what had caused the Manor to become in the state it currently was in to begin with. One problem at a time.

Clearing the passageway was arduous and it took them longer than they would have liked but they were not overcome by enemy forces nor had they any sign that Voldemort had returned to finish them off. All three of them were sweating, robes had been discarded, oxfords had been partially unbuttoned with the sleeves rolled to their elbows. Their black trousers were dirt covered and ruined, the fine material not able to hold up under the manual labor.

Lucius floated Bellatrix at his side while Abraxas led the way, Draco taking the rear when they finally reached the smooth shiny black door. Abraxas tried opening it alone but as it stood barred he knew that it would take blood from all three of them to open it. Perhaps it would have been different if it wasn't currently full of enemies waiting for their jailer to begin their interrogation sessions.

The three of them stood at the door. Lucius had laid Bellatrix down none too gently as they each nicked their own fingers, letting a bead of dark red blood flow as they gave the door its blood price.

The moment that the door was opened a great groaning filled the cavernous space of the passageway. Abraxas walked in first, his brow nearly in his hair line.

"Well," He drawled. "this is new."

Great cubes of cages rose from the floor in stacks. Five wizards per cage and eight hundred cages. Cages were stacked on top of each other, going as high as five cubes. The room had a musky smell, as if they had kept magnificent beasts in the enclosures for years. Lucius wrinkled his nose as Draco pinched his, only Abraxas acting as if the human stench was nothing but fresh air. The room was stifling and stagnant, the only fresh air was what came in with the Malfoys. It had already been used and recycled back before the door had even shut behind them.

Two men stared at the newcomers from the places mounted on the wall, where they had been ever since Abraxas had lured them in with promises of grand feasts and treats for the Manor's grand kitchens.

"Crabbe, Goyle?" Draco asked, mildly shocked to find his old chums in his family's personal hellhole.

"How are you alive?" Crabbe asked, eyes round with fear.

"We will ask the questions here." Abraxas boomed, his voice unnaturally loud in the room that created the echo for him. The room, after all, was semi-sentient and its only goal was to please its owner. In this case, the patriarch, Abraxas Malfoy. The room need not be asked. It was built so that the owner would only need think of what he wanted with the intention of following through. It is what made the chamber such a marvel because intentions are not always what happens in the real world.

Wizards called from their cages, their begging filled the air.

"Malfoy, please! I will do anything! Just let me go!" It was a chorus of men who feared being broken, men who feared the unknown variable in the equation in which a Malfoy held the reins. The Malfoy men were not notorious for their mercy.

The three men ignored their caged prisoners as they brought Bellatrix in and secured her to a table in the center of the room where everyone could see. The cages stank with fear and the room noticeably warmed.

Sweat was already beading the Malfoy's brows as the last restraint was placed. Draco stood at his aunt's feet and clenched his wand tightly. His mind was a parade of all of the horrible things she had done to his family.

"Enervate." Abraxas chanted as if the spell were an old lover.

Bellatrix's' eyes flew open, indignation pouring from every pore on her body.

"Let me go." She growled.

"Of course, Bellatrix. Just as soon as we exact the blood price that you owe us. You failed to protect your sister, even going so far as to mar her body and ravage her mind. You tortured Hermione, our betrothed. You defaced an invaluable painting that we can only hope to restore, and that, is only the beginning." Lucius started.

Bellatrix narrowed her eyes in warning.

"You destroyed my sister. All of those years that you treated her with disregard and neglect broke her! You reap what you sow, Lucius Malfoy."

"Perhaps," He murmured, his eyes cold as ice. "but that doesn't make you any less a monster. I may be a terrible husband but you… you are the one that broke her. You with your love of the Dark Lord and your disregard for the only person that Narcissa loved, your nephew, Draco. Narcissa gave up everything for him, for us. And even if I wasn't the ideal husband to her, I loved her in my own way. You hurt her more than I ever did."

"Is that what you tell yourself to excuse your interest in that Mudblood whore? I saw you. Your hands were all over her as she panted like the little tart she is and while Narcissa is still alive too." Her lips twisted with derision as she spewed her venom despite being the one strapped to the table.

"Speaking of Narcissa," Abraxas focused his gaze on the woman who once had been a happy child, running around the gardens at the manors of their peers. That was so long ago, a distant memory that was like vapor and smoke. It was a fleeting memory that left the moment she opened her mouth. "What did he do to her?"

"Who?"

"Your Dark Lord." Abraxas sneered.

"What didn't he do to her." She said.

"Something is wrong with her magic."

A loud masculine throat cleared from one of the cages. Yaxley pressed himself to the iron bars, his face cradled in between them.

"I know what he did to her."

"And?" Abraxas drawled.

"Please," He begged. "let me out of here and I will tell you everything I know."

"How do I know, that you know anything at all?"

"I was there! I helped research the spell."

"Go on…" Abraxas said.

"Please." He begged.

Abraxas sauntered back to the cage that held Yaxley and stood just out of reach.

"Did you touch Narcissa?" Abraxas questioned, watching as Yaxley's face drained color. Even the unnatural flush from the heat of the room and the packed cages filled with people, disappeared under Abraxas' intense gaze and nondescript smile.

"I," he stammered.

"I see." Abraxas turned, dismissing the panicked Yaxley and took the first step back to the interrogation table.

"Wait! I'm sorry! Please! Don't leave me in here! I will tell you whatever you want to know!"

"Then start talking."

Yaxley licked his parched lips and his eyes nervously roved the area around them. He lowered his voice, knowing that every person in the room knew that he was now a betrayer, a traitor to his Lord.

"He magically linked them. He is like a parasite on her magic and he can draw on her from where ever she is. No matter the distance. The more he draws at once, the weaker she gets. He used to experiment then wipe her mind. She would spend days unconscious or was forced to do things that no one should be forced to do. He craved that control of her. None of us dared interfere. We didn't want to offer up our own wives and daughters in her place and he found it amusing to offer her as a reward. Some of us wanted nothing to do with it but when the Dark Lord gifts you a fuck with his own personal slave, you do not say no, even if you have to spend the hour beforehand edging, so that you stay hard enough not to disgrace yourself in front of him."

"I see." Abraxas said in his knowing voice.

"Shut the hell up, Yaxley!" Bellatrix threatened.

"Will you let me out?" Yaxley begged again.

"I think not." Abraxas said as he walked away from the screams that held terror and begging. It wasn't long before his cell mates had circled him. No one missed the heavy thuds and grunts of the beating that Yaxley was now receiving from his brethren. Abraxas hadn't even made it back to the table that Bellatrix was bound to before Yaxley started sobbing, the wet sound of blood covered fists pounding into already tortured flesh, rolling the stomachs of the weakest of Voldemort's disciples. The smell of vomit filled the air.

Abraxas met Draco's wide eyes.

"There will come a day when this is not necessary. When Riddle is destroyed but that day will not be today or tomorrow or even next week. The day he is destroyed we can put down these burdens until then, this is something that we have to do to get information. It is not always about what we want to do but what is most helpful for our cause."

"Doesn't that make us like him? Monsters?"

"These wizards are glorifying the types depravity that only the most debauched and vile of criminals commit. You didn't see what they were doing when we saved Harry or who they were doing it to. I don't know any other way to get information. If you have a better way, by all means."

"Can't we just talk to them?" Draco asked. Abraxas pulled him from the room and waited until the obsidian door slid shut.

"Isn't that what we are doing? I have not touched them nor tortured them. I have insinuated things. I have asked questions but other than that I have done nothing."

"They will kill Yaxley."

"Because he is a traitor and he did horrible things to your mother. Should we save him then? Let him go?"

"No."

Abraxas sighed and put a hand on Draco's shoulder.

"Interrogation is not for everyone. It is something that I am well versed in and excel in. If you would prefer to go back to Hermione, we will not think any less of you."

"The cages…" Draco whispered.

"I have never seen the room do that. Then again, I have never had so many prisoners at once in here. The room does what it needs to do, to be most efficient at breaking them. It is a torture chamber." Abraxas said. Draco nodded, his eyes staring unseeing into the darkness that surrounded them. "What do you want to do?"

"I will stay." He whispered, his face going slightly green. "Maybe, it wouldn't hurt to learn this."

Abraxas and Draco reentered the room, Lucius standing at Bellatrix's head as she thrashed around. He was laughing at her. The humiliation made her furious and the angrier she got, the harder she fought, the more Lucius laughed.

Abraxas caught Lucius' eye. Lucius moved back from her sight and stood slightly in the shadows, Draco walking to stand next to him as Abraxas approached the furious witch.

"What is Riddle planning?" He murmured at the still thrashing general.

"Nothing. He has what he wants." She sneered.

"I highly doubt that. Tom was always too ambitious for his own good."

They stared at each other, fire meeting ice.

"He is a loose cannon, acting more and more erratically. Isn't he?" Abraxas purred.

Her face froze. Abraxas was watching her closely. Every flutter of her eyelids seemed to indicate something, each facial twitch seemed to reveal a deeply hidden secret. He was smiling victoriously. She resumed her furious thrashing, lifting her head and snapping her teeth in his amused face.

**HGHG**

Voldemort stood on the rise that he had been defeated on only hours earlier and grinned. The ruined shell of Malfoy Manor gleamed in the moonlight. He took a deep breath as he drew on the magical reserves of his host. Narcissa's well of magic ran deep and steady. He reveled in the fact that she was his for eternity. They may have her body but she would always be his.

He walked slowly onto the unwarded property and using the shadows and darkness to cover his advancement, the small contingent of his inner circle followed closely behind him. His eyes were focused on the one room left standing. The threads of magic that bound Narcissa to him drew him to where she was. He had many goals in mind but the most important was retrieving his host, Hermione, and his traitor, Snape.

Harry Potter was only a small niggling annoyance in the back of his mind. And the Malfoys… The Malfoys were an unexpected complication. With the amount of effort it took to eradicate them the first time, he was certain that they would become the biggest pains in his arse, even more so than Harry Potter had ever been.

His most loyal followers encircled the only standing part of the building and watched as their master approached the doorway, a cruel smile on their lips.

The stone from the hallway crunched under his feet as he raised his wand and blasted the door out of his way. Snape was on his feet in seconds, casting a shield that would make anyone cocky. Potter and Hermione scrambled behind him, raising their own. Voldemort smiled wickedly. This was perfect. Everyone he wanted was all together in this one room. Even the Malfoys were out of his way. He decided it must be providence, the universe conspiring in his favor. He released a deep, dark chuckle.