The Prison

April 20, 1945

As Tom had predicted, the Ministry investigation came to an inconclusive close by the end of the week. A few students, primarily Slytherins, had been questioned, but there was too little evidence from the cases to blame any one person. The Knights had been diligent in that regard and Tom was quite satisfied with himself for how much he had taught them. Indeed, the orchestration of the murders was likely one of his proudest accomplishments at Hogwarts so far, falling only slightly behind the discoveries of his Slytherin lineage and the Chamber of Secrets. Perhaps, he thought arrogantly, he would soon have to add the defeat of Grindelwald to the list.

"I am optimistic that this is an unnecessary reminder, but you will not try anything until I say so. Understood?" Tom looked around at Adam Lestrange, Abraxas Malfoy, and Antonin Dolohov. He had been tempted to bring along Brocklehurst and some of the other Knights members, but eventually decided against it given their inability to Apparate. Though they were of little use to him now, they would certainly prove their worth to him in a few weeks' time.

Satisfied with the affirmations he received in response, Tom led them inside the Twitchy Witch, an inconspicuous pub that Tom had come to know during the summer prior as a frequent haunt for some of the darkest wizards in Knockturn Alley. Inside, it was cavern-like and lit only by a few candles near the dingy bar that managed to illuminate just as far as the spider-web covered barstools. On the walls were sketches and portraits of disfigured witches and wizards that appeared to be stolen from the records of St. Mungo's Spell Damage ward. According to Mr. Burke, the place was run by a one-eyed witch who knew the faces of every Auror that had worked at the Ministry in the last fifty years and took considerable pleasure in exposing his or her identity to the unforgiving patrons whenever one dared to show up.

Unsurprisingly, it was one of Tom's favorite places in Knockturn Alley.

They ordered a round of drinks and Lestrange and Malfoy started chatting quietly about some brainless thing to keep them from looking suspicious (although that was essentially a given in a place such as this anyway), while Riddle and Dolohov surveyed the room and waited for the Eavesdropping Eardrops that Tom had brewed earlier that week to take effect. Soon, he began to hear snippets of the conversations around them:

"– ya' know damned well that vampire teeth are worth more than –"

"Aurors raided his shop the other morning –"

"– a curious dream, no doubt. I suspect that it might be a prophecy…"

Nothing particularly of note, until he heard:

"- in the alley between Howl Street and Vanish Way…set it to expire two weeks from now." The raspy voice came from the opposite corner of the pub, where a pair of cloaked wizards sat. "And this time, make sure you're not followed. We wouldn't want another mistake like Ashburn, would we? Next time that happens, you're going to have to answer to him – not me."

Ashburn. Tom recognized the name immediately as one of the Aurors that had gone missing while investigating the ECB scare. As he continued to listen in, his face twisted into an evil grin.

Jackpot.

"Two weeks?" the other figure hissed back. "That's longer than any of the others. What if –"

"Asking questions isn't part of the job. Haven't you learned that by now? Come now…it's time." The two wizard put some money on the table and left without another word.

He and Dolohov exchanged glances and their matching smirks confirmed that they had overheard the same conversation.

So as not to arouse suspicion, they waited five excruciatingly long minutes before leaving to follow the pair. Of course, by this time, they were nowhere to be found around the pub. Tom led the others further into Knockturn Alley toward the side street the wizard had mentioned, between Vanish and Howl.

While they hurried along, he wondered what exactly had they been talking about; what was set to expire? A curse on someone's residence?

Apparently not, because the alley that they arrived at was completely barren except for a trash bin and some garbage scattered around it. Tom studied the stone walls of the buildings for traces of magic – surely there had to be some sort of clue.

"Shit!" Malfoy suddenly exclaimed, jumping backwards about a foot.

Lestrange promptly burst out laughing. "You call yourself a bloody Slytherin? Fuck, mate, it's just a snake."

Tom whipped around to see it slithering down the opposite end of the alley.

"Stop!" he called after it in Parseltongue.

It froze, giving Tom a few minutes to catch up to it. "My apologies for the imbecile," Tom said as he knelt on the damp ground near the snake. "Was there a wizard here a moment ago?"

The snake stared at him for a moment and cocked its head to the side. "How curious…you speak Parseltongue. I thought the Parselmouths were only a legend."

He so did not have time for this. "The wizard – did you see him?"

"Yes – but he was surely either drunk or mad. I was going to bite him, actually, because he scared away my dinner just as I was about to strike."

"What was he doing?"

"Muttering over a piece of garbage - some sort of spell, if I had to guess. He had a stick."

"A wand," Tom corrected the snake. "What garbage?"

"The bottle. There, by your friend's foot."

A portkey! Of course. He scolded himself for not thinking of this sooner.

"Thank you." Tom abruptly stood and started back to where the others were waiting.

"Nice meeting you, Mr. Parseltongue," the snake hissed after him.

"That's fucking wicked, mate," beamed Lestrange as Tom rejoined them.

"I know," Tom replied arrogantly while donning a smirk once more. "Now draw your wands," he instructed the three of them. "We are about to meet Grindelwald."

Although classes were scheduled to resume on Monday and Rosemary had a considerable amount to finish over the weekend in preparation, she found herself unable to focus on much of anything and had instead begun wandering the castle. It was rather peaceful at first, especially since curfew had just passed and few students were out, but all of that changed when she rounded the corner and nearly collided with Emily Springer.

"Springer," Rose greeted her coolly, rather unsure how to act. They hadn't spoken in months and their last interaction had been quite nasty.

"Horton."

She hadn't a clue what to say, but felt the urge to say something. "I heard about your engagement…congratulations."

Emily gazed at her in contempt. "I heard about your engagement too. And that you're back with Riddle."

"Yeah, it's erm…it's been an interesting year."

An uncomfortable silence fell between them and Rosemary was about to excuse herself when Emily suddenly asked, "You never loved him, did you? Warren, I mean."

What point was there in lying? Rosemary shook her head. "No." She was trying to be nonchalant, but she slowly felt that dreadful feeling of guilt creeping up her spine. Before she knew it, she added, "I'm really sorry, Emily, especially for all the things that I said at the beginning of the year. I wish I could explain."

"Why can't you?"

"It's complicated."

Emily sighed and rolled her eyes. "Whatever, Rosemary. It doesn't matter anymore. Anyway, I suppose you're on your way to see Faye."

"Why would you say that?"

"After this afternoon? Hadn't you heard?"

"No," Rosemary snapped, her eyes widening in panic. "Where is she? The Infirmary?"

Emily nodded gravely. "I wouldn't let her see her reflection for a while if I were you – Faye's always been the vain kind."

Without another word, Rose rushed to the Infirmary in a full-fledged panic.

"Oh my gods! Faye, what happened?!" she cried as she approached her friend's cot.

Madam Roche shushed her and Faye's eyes slowly fluttered open – or eye, rather, as the other half of her face was entirely concealed by bandages. Emily was right, Faye did look a mess. "Where's Adam?" she mumbled.

"He's, erm, with Tom…" Rosemary eyed the matron, careful not to say anything that might indicate he was outside of the castle.

"That bastard – I can't believe…Oh Rosemary…" Faye abruptly started crying.

Rosemary gave the nurse a look of desperation. "Madam Roche, may we have a bit of privacy please?"

She nodded swiftly and left, but not without giving Rose a sour look for distracting her from her healing duties.

"Tell me what happened," Rosemary said soothingly, while taking a seat at the end of the cot. "From the beginning."

"I stopped by his dormitory after dinner to pick up a few of my things – you know, since we've been fighting and all and I've begun sleeping in my own dormitory again. And under his pillow I found…Merlin, this is mortifying. I'm such a bloody idiot!"

"What? What did you find?"

"A pair of knickers. They weren't mine and they certainly aren't Adam's."

Rosemary's jaw dropped in shock.

"But I knew right away who they belonged to. Oh yes – how could I possibly forget who had been all over him this week? In the Great Hall, in the corridors…she was trying to seduce him every chance she got! And I thought it was all one-sided. But apparently not."

"Who, Faye?" Rosemary demanded, though she was fairly sure she had a good idea anyway.

"Hornby."

Yes, of course. Because who else would try such a stunt? But something about this didn't add up in Rosemary's head: Adam adored Faye and everyone knew it. Was his frustration with her over Markus really enough to crumble them?

"Did you confront her?"

"Well of course! Do you have any idea what she said to me?"

"What?" Rosemary ventured nervously.

"She said, and I quote: 'Of course I slept with him. And between you and me, he was far better the first time we fucked – before the two of you went steady.' Can you believe the nerve?"

"No. I truly can't," Rosemary shook her head. Clearly, the bitch didn't know when to quit. "But do you really believe her? It sounds like you need to talk to Adam…after all, this could just be her most recent attempt to break up the two of you."

"I don't know what to believe. But there were all those rumors flying around in the summer before sixth year that they were snogging and the like."

"They're rumors, Love. Now where did all this come from?" Rosemary gestured to the bandages on her face.

"Well I was so angry that I ended up cursing her. She cursed me back and I tried to block it, but I was hit. And guess what it was?"

Some of the most awful curses that Rosemary could think of flashed through her mind. Had it burned half of Faye's face? Scarred her? The extent of her bandages made it seem quite serious.

"A Pimple Jinx. It doesn't even matter anymore if this was a hoax put on by Hornby – Adam will never want me now!" Faye burst into tears again.

Rosemary rolled her eyes. "A Pimple Jinx is easy to cure – even an advanced version of the spell."

"That's what Madam Roche said too, but there is always a chance that healing won't work. My skin was flawless before. Flawless!"

"Yes, about a point zero zero zero one percent chance," Rose scoffed. "You're going to be fine."

But even in this lighthearted moment, Rosemary was still boiling with anger internally. It was about time that she delivered on the threat she made to Olive after the last Knights meeting, wasn't it?

Faye sighed and closed her eyes, leaning back against her pillow. "I swear to Merlin I'm going to kill him and that insufferable bitch as soon as I get out of here."

Rosemary surprised herself when she suddenly laughed darkly and replied, "Not if I get to her first."

Tom had traveled by portkey only once before and that night was a firm reminder as to why he had loathed it so much the first time. Not only was it nausea-inducing, it was completely disorienting. Even when he began to see the scenery of their destination appearing around them, everything continued to spin and the sounds around him were muted as though they were trapped in a giant whirlwind.

This wouldn't have been such an issue if there weren't spells being fired at them at precisely the same time. Tom felt the heat radiating off a streak of blue light graze his ear and he struggled to find his feet to balance himself, while at the same time firing a few spells in the general direction from which the light came. The spinning began to slow and sounds began to grow louder as Tom continued to fire spells until finally, everything was quiet again.

When the spinning finally came to a halt and Tom's eyes began to focus on his surroundings, he saw Malfoy and Dolohov paralyzed and lying on the moss-covered earth. A few feet past them, at a small stream, Lestrange was holding his stomach and retching from what was surely the after-effects of the portkey. On Tom's other side, at the base of a large cliff, three wizards he assumed were Grindelwald's men laid defeated.

"Lestrange, revive the others," he commanded, while looking up the side of the cliff. Just beyond the very top, he could see the tip of some sort of structure that was protected by a fortress of boulders and additional rock.

His heart started pounding and it was then that he knew: this was it. He had found Grindelwald's outpost.

"Holy Merlin's balls…" Lestrange sighed as he, Malfoy, and Dolohov rejoined Tom.

Dolohov pulled out his ominoculars and gazed up at the huge structure. "There are bars on some of the windows," he commented and handed them over to Tom.

Tom brought the ominoculars to his face and could see figures moving around inside, just beyond the bars. So it must have been some sort of prison, then, for Grindelwald's enemies. He adjusted the lenses on the ominoculars and tried to make out some of the faces inside in hopes that he might recognize them as some of the missing Aurors, but they were too far away for him to see anything useful.

"Für das höhere Wohl…" Malfoy said suddenly, pointing at the letters carved over the front of the stone façade. "That means 'For the Greater Good', doesn't it? In German?"

"Yes," Tom replied with a satisfied smirk. "It certainly does."

While Malfoy and Lestrange took pictures of the prison from the base of the cliff, Dolohov placed temporary sleeping enchantments on the three guards and Tom carefully wiped their memories of the encounter.

Tom had been extremely tempted to get a closer look, but knew it would be unwise given their limited numbers and his uncertainty of how many wizards were guarding the prison. Besides, now that they had a portkey that would be activated for the next two weeks, he would have plenty of opportunities to come back and scope it out in preparation for the Knights' attack. It was best to leave when they were still ahead and could easily go unnoticed.

Rosemary tied up her hair and hovered over the test subject (or victim, rather) that she had found on the dormitory windowsill. But even after hours of pouring over every book that Tom owned regarding dark magic, Rosemary still hesitated. Suddenly all she could think of was a conversation that she and Tom had earlier that week regarding Unforgivable Curses:

"Are the things that they say happen after you cast an Unforgivable Curse…are they true? Do you feel different somehow?"she had asked him. They had been taught again and again in their Defense Against the Dark Arts coursework that performing an Unforgivable Curse changed the nature of one's magic permanently, somehow tainting it in a way that became progressively worse the more one used them.

"Not really," he told her while running a finger along the back of her hand. "It won't harm you like they want you to believe."

"They?"

"Think about it, Rosemary. Anything you might possibly experience has been largely overdramatized by the government to discourage people from trying the Curses."

"The punishment in Azkaban wasn't enough of a deterrent?" she muttered.

His face flashed a hint of a smirk. "Well you asked, didn't you?"

She considered this for a moment. "I suppose."

"As long as you perform them correctly, you have nothing to worry about; nothing about your magic will feel different." This had been admittedly quite reassuring, given his obvious experience with the Unforgivable Curses. However, what he said next had chilled her to the core: "Although there will be one change, of course: you will feel powerful."

And so, as Rosemary paused over the beetle with her wand at the ready, it was not because she was afraid that she would botch the spell. Rather, she was afraid of the darkness and the consequences of allowing it into her head. Tom had been able to handle it, clearly; after all, he had hidden it well enough that she hadn't even discovered it until months into their relationship. But what if she wasn't as strong as he was?

But then she remembered Faye's current state of devastation and knew there was no room for her to continue fearing the consequences. It was far past time to put Olive in her place once and for all – and this time, she would use whatever means were necessary.

"Imperio," she began and watched as puff of dark green smoke escaped from the end of her wand. The beetle, which had been scurrying around incessantly, seemed to slow down for a few moments, but then continued running toward the edge of her desk.

"Imperio," she tried again. This time she missed the insect completely and it escaped behind her desk. "Accio beetle," Rosemary said in frustration, before enlarging it with a light Engorgement Charm to make its next attempt at escape more difficult.

She took a deep breath and said the Unforgivable curse again. This time, the smoke coming out of the tip of her wand seemed to be a bit more directed and it wrapped around the beetle, which suddenly stopped moving as though it were transfixed by the spell. But when she tried to command it to cross the room, nothing happened. Rosemary tried to focus her mind, just as all of Tom's books had suggested.

She felt a surge of victory as she watched its leg twitch and begin to move in the direction of the door. Rosemary's heart pounded in excitement, despite the rather miniscule nature of this progress, and she was surprised to feel a burning desire within herself to succeed in seizing total control over the creature.

Her intense concentration was shattered, however, when she heard a voice from behind her: "It seems that you were more eager to begin than you initially let on."

Rosemary snapped her head around and saw Tom standing in the open doorway with a considerable smirk twisted across his handsome features. Her face flushed in embarrassment and she turned to begin cleaning up the mess of books she had scattered around her.

"So, how did it go?" she asked him as she resettled onto the window seat of the study, her voice slightly higher pitched than usual.

But Tom ignored her. "I would love a demonstration of your progress."

"I am awfully tired," she replied quickly as she felt her face begin flushing again. The thought of performing dark magic in front of Tom, who outranked her by several orders of magnitude, made her incredibly nervous. "It is almost three in the morning, after all…Perhaps another time."

"Tomorrow then." His dark eyes danced with excitement and she knew he wouldn't take no for an answer. Though despite her nervousness, she did feel a compulsion to reach for her wand and continue practicing…

"Alright," she answered weakly. Eager to change the topic, she prompted him once again: "Did the four of you find anything?"

"Yes, actually," he beamed and sat across from her in front of the window. "I found the prison in which he keeps his enemies."

He said this so nonchalantly that all she could manage to do was blink at him.

"And we now have a way of returning." He unfolded his cloak and showed her an empty Firewhiskey bottle.

"A portkey?"

He nodded and leaned his head back against the window, closing his eyes as a look of pure satisfaction spread across his face. It was one of the happiest, most relaxed she had ever seen him. "I wish you were there to witness it first-hand; Dolohov and Malfoy have pictures, of course, but they are nothing like what it was in person. The fortress was massive – there had to be at least five hundred prison cells."

"Wasn't there anyone guarding it?"

"Oh yes," he answered proudly, his eyes still closed. "Three of them – easily defeated, of course. See? You had nothing at all to worry about."

"I suppose not." She stared at him, still marveling at his incredible accomplishment. He had managed to both find and return unscathed from the place that had eluded Auror after Auror for months. For a moment, Rosemary couldn't decide if it was thanks to his incredible intelligence and magical ability or a stroke of sublime luck, but she supposed it was probably some combination of both.

Rose saw his breathing begin to deepen and she pulled herself against his chest. "Tired?" she asked him, while reaching up to run her hand through his hair.

"No," he muttered in response.

Rosemary grinned. It was so very Tom Riddle to deny anything that could be even remotely construed as a moment of weakness. As she gazed up at him in admiration and ran a finger along his sharp jawline, an odd feeling of regret fell upon her, as though she were actually jealous for missing out on the excitement that evening. She wondered briefly where that could have possibly come from; a few days before, she had been worried sick at the thought of him going to track down Grindelwald and suddenly she wished she had gone with?

She was completely blindsided by her own feelings when she suddenly realized that there was a part of her that truly wanted to be a part of his world and all of the excitement that came along with it. After all, he and the others were fighting for the ideals that she shared. Rosemary might not agree with all of their chosen methods, but she couldn't exactly argue the point of it all. Maybe, she thought wildly, if she did allow herself to get closer, she could even convince him that there were perhaps more efficient and far less violent ways of doing things.

Most importantly, it occurred to her that for them to grow closer, it would be necessary for her to venture further into darkness. And did she really have anything to fear as long as he was there to guide her?

"Just like our eyes, our hearts have a way of adjusting to the dark" -Adam Stanley

Thanks for reading, everyone! As always, a special thanks to those who took the time to review as well.(:

I'm going out of town this coming weekend, so I'll be shooting for an early update. Lots of reviews will help to ensure that I have the motivation to finish on time.(;