Beyond This Point Lie Monsters

At the edge of the mariner's
Map is written: 'Beyond
This point lie Monsters.'
(Rita Dove, Primer to the Nuclear Age)

Part 2 ~ Keep Your Enemies Closer

You're curled under silk sheets right at the edge of the imposing four-poster that dominates your room, and yet, sleep plays hide and seek with you like a giggling spirit child. You rarely sleep well. The magic that has seeped into the stones and wood of Malfoy Manor makes you giddy, bothers you, an invisible itch right under your skin. That they put you under any variety of magics during the day doesn't help either.

And, of course, the Manor is a dangerous place, with its human-shaped jungle cats on the prowl. Especially tonight, when Lucius has been called to the service of his 'Master' and whatever dark orgy that accompanies. Alone in the Manor with Tom and an assortment of house-elves... Your hand slips under the pillow to caress the tiny, lethal blade concealed there. It has been no more than a decorative accessory to a fruit bowl until you sharpened it into your shield against real and imaginary nightmares. Lucius would be proud of you, if he knew. Perhaps he does.

You are oh so watchful, and yet Tom manages to surprise you. Of course, with the Manor's library of spells at his disposal, and the private library in his head, that isn't surprising. Spells to swallow sound, spells to suffocate even the minute rush of air accompanying movement, spells to attain near invisibility. Once, you were able to invoke several of them yourself, but not any more. Not without magic.

When the concealing spells are dropped and his shape materialises outside the gauze curtains, you grip the knife and hurl yourself at him, quick as a viper. You are faster than him, it's about the only advantage you have. But then, he doesn't need speed. He is a wizard.

"Impedimenta!" The curse makes use of your own momentum to propel you backwards. Thankfully, the soft mattress cushions the worst impact, but still your head is ringing and a trickle of blood runs from your nose into your mouth. Bitter, like the water in the Chamber of Secrets.

"Not good enough, Harry," he mocks.

With a quick pull he jerks the two drape strings from the headboard and transfigures them with a flick of his wand, leaving two black-and-green patterned serpents in his hands. He throws them onto the pillow next to your head and hisses a command. You're still too dazed to pull away when they knot themselves tightly around your wrists and then the bedposts, until their heads return to carefully wrap around their tails. They look almost cheerful like that, and you wonder absent-mindedly whether snakes who used to be silk cords can dream.

You wish desperately you could just tell them to please let go, but the whole presentation is Tom's way of rubbing in the fact that you can't speak to them any more. That you've lost not just Parseltongue, but everything. Perhaps you could pull free, but you don't want to hurt them - they haven't done you wrong. And how far would you get? Where could you run to? You feel like beating on the door to the cage that imprisons your magic until you sag, bleeding, against the bars only to realise that it has been empty all along.

Tom stares down at you, picking the tiny knife up from the bedclothes onto which it has fallen. He twirls it between his index fingers and a slow smile curls around his lips. He knows how to use it, too. Lucius insisted on teaching you both. Of course Tom radiates underhanded resentment during the lessons - he's a wizard after all - but then he's Slytherin, and they don't pass up knowledge just because it's improper. It's probably why they're so good with the Unforgivables.

You force your face to remain calm. You don't want him to have the satisfaction of seeing you squirm, or your fear. In fact, the only thing you'd like to give him is a blade in the gut.

But of course that's not true, is it? You don't want to hurt him, not deep down. Sometimes when you look at him, a little voice inside you whispers, I made you. I turned you from shade into being.

You're pretty sure that sometimes, he thinks that too. One of the many, many reasons he hates you.

"Why did you drop by, exactly?" you ask.

An inky eyebrow rises.

"I thought with Lucius being away it would be a good opportunity to talk about him," he murmurs.

You close your eyes in frustration.

"He believes you are harbouring some unique, untapped powers... but that's not all, I think."

He lowers the little knife to the hollow of your throat, and neatly cuts through the top string of your pyjama top. It is a stylish piece in black silk, and you have the strong suspicion that it was filched from Draco Malfoy's wardrobe for your benefit. Obviously, Tom is no more fond of the silly little string fastenings than you are. You peer up at him from under half-closed lids, keeping an eye on the movements of the blade. He's... volatile, Lucius' Tom.

"He wants you, you know?"

"Yes, I know." A plethora of acidic responses run through your head. You let out your breath in an exasperated hiss. "But it's you who's sharing his bed, not me. So what the hell do you want?"

"Do you love him?"

Three months ago, in a cave deep below Hogwarts, you made a vow you'd never lie to Tom Riddle. It unnerves him like nothing else, and you enjoy very much to insinuate that he's not worth the bother to deceive him. Of course sometimes, it backfires.

"I don't know." You grimace with a sharp sting of self-disgust. "Sometimes I'm afraid I might."

And sometimes, you desperately wish Lucius Malfoy would just make his move - it would drag the matter out of the dark broom closet into the sun-flooded open of the pitch. Though you have not the faintest idea what your answer would be. Or that's what you keep telling yourself. Because perhaps you're too restless, under too much pressure and too desperately lonely for a rational choice.

"I think you like it when he touches you," Tom muses. He slides the blade along your chin and neck like a deranged barber. You swallow, and he smiles. "I think you like it when I touch you."

And he's right, of course. His mere presence is drowning out the omnipresent crackling of magic that pushes you almost to the brink of insanity whenever you're left alone. Those hands, however, are the most lethal of all possible means of distraction. He revels in seeing you so frozen, and helpless.

"Are you afraid of me, Harry?"

"Yes." You return his smile in best Slytherin fashion. "But not enough to not admit it." You've had a lot of lessons on Slytherin behaviour over the past weeks. They use whatever weapons are at their disposal. Words are not the worst.

The disconcerting mad glint dances in his eyes again, the one that makes you wonder whether one day he'll just give in to his desire to throw something deadly your way, and weather the storm of Lucius' reaction afterwards. Maybe. Maybe tonight, indeed.

"I wish he would just go ahead and take you." It so closely echoes your thoughts that you gape. "He could have his fun for a while, and then discard you like the Muggle filth you are."

You shake your head at the utter condescension.

"And just why do you feel so possessive about Lucius? Don't tell me you want anything but to use him." You let your lip curl in an almost Malfoy-like fashion. "I'm sure that inside that insidious snake-mind of yours you already have a plan to rid yourself of him once you're not dependent on his protection any more."

You're not very surprised that this amuses him.

"But he wouldn't expect any less of me, Harry."

You suppress the urge to kick at air. Slytherins!

"And who says that he'd get tired of me so quickly?" You can't help but snipe at his self-assured expression. "It could be you who doesn't measure up to his high standards."

The only reaction is a slow, particularly vile grin spreading over his face, an expression that makes you wish desperately you had kept your mouth shut.

"I really don't think so," he whispers, leaning over you so that his lips almost touch your ear. "I only had to kiss you in the Chamber and you were ready to surrender your soul, remember? And I think I can do far worse to you, dear Harry."

Too focused on waiting for a curse, you hardly notice the hand that unties the drawstrings of your pyjama pants and slides inside. Curls around you, so viciously gentle that you're not sure if you're about to be sick, or go mad.

You might have pulled on the serpentine restraints now, but somehow you can't even remember you have arms. The muscles in your thighs and calves tense almost to a cramp as the movement of those terrible, clever fingers reverberates in your head as if they were playing not on your skin, but directly on the nerves underneath. Squeezing your eyes shut, you suffer quietly, three thoughts coiling around each other in your brain. Don't cry! Don't move! Don't make a sound! You bite your lip against the sensations until bitter salt blossoms in your mouth.

But in the end, your body betrays you, as you knew it must. His fingertips pull a desperate moan out of you like a dentist extracting a particular reticent root. And once your armour has been chinked, your body follows the sound and arches into his hand, because losing even a fraction of that touch would be just too cruel to bear.

And then he looks down at you, acknowledging your surrender as his due, and pulls his hand away. With a terribly condescending leer he rises and brushes his fingers over your lips, leaving a different taste - less salty, more bitter - and leaves as quietly as ever.

Only after you're certain that his footsteps have faded in the distance of the corridor do you allow yourself to cry.

~ ~ ~

The snakes return to their former shapes and slide off your wrists an hour later. Ample time for helpless frustration to turn into burning shame. As soon as you're able to move, you run. It's a huge manor with corridors and halls to lose yourself in. Actually, you'd prefer a corner to just crawl into, but it wouldn't be beneath the accursed bastard to watch your movements with a tracking spell, and you'll be damned before giving him additional proof of how badly he has got to you. You give a contemptuous snort that makes the Dark Wizard dismembering a unicorn in the nearest frame look up in surprise. As if he could have missed it.

'The deeper the wound, the greater the need to hide it. Retreat, gather your strength, and strike back when the enemy's attention is focused elsewhere.' Lucius drummed that lesson into you with more curses than you ever knew existed. Tonight would probably have amused him. He delights in watching his two... protégés battle. Or rather, he delights in watching his protégé beat down the Boy Who Lived To Wind Up A Muggle.

Suddenly you desperately wish to have Ron and Hermione around. You rarely permit yourself to think about them, but at the moment you want nothing so much as to lean on someone who does not enjoy seeing you hurt. They'd be ideal companions to explore the Manor, to poke fun at the most macabre paintings, to take your mind off the constant throb of magic. Whenever everything is quiet, with nothing to divert your attention, it drums in your bloodstream, hisses at the back of your head, like a tinnitus humming in your bones instead of your ears.

Wizards don't sense the magic because it's part of them, Lucius explained to you. Unless it's something strong, like a Repellent Charm or a Dementor, Muggles don't notice because they're not sensitised to magic. Only you, who have been sensitised and lost the very power, feel its radiance all around you - the paintings, the bespelled walls, the subtle shifting and changing of wards. At least, unlike at Hogwarts, the rooms mostly stay in place. That would have driven you over the edge for sure.

~ ~ ~

You only notice that you've strayed into the entrance hall of the Manor when you feel the heavy outer wards of the building churn and twist themselves. It's not a noise, more like a grinding feeling in the back of your neck. Wrenching, and vaguely familiar, and wrong. You give the ornate double doors that lead to the Hall of Apparition a calculating look.

In all likelihood it's Lucius, returning from his Death Eater meeting. Of course, you're forbidden to be here. But then again, one of the first lessons you've learned is that every rule may be broken, as long as one is willing to pay the price. And at the moment, you frankly couldn't care less.

You throw open the doors, ready for a confrontation, and instead freeze in the doorway.

He lies sprawled on the floor, like something a troll crumpled up and then flung away. You move so fast that you only realise you're kneeling next to the body when your hands hover over the dull black Death Eater cloak. It takes a lot of will power to touch it, and not only because you're afraid to hurt him.

But there are no wounds, you realise when you finally manage to turn him face-up - just closed eyes, and a pallor that makes 'ashen' sound like the euphemism of the day. The rigidity of his muscles you can chalk up to the aftermath of an overdose of the Cruciatus curse, but it's the wrongness that surrounds him which worries you. He feels washed out - like pumpkin juice diluted with too much water, until it's no longer bright orange, but sickly yellow. It terrifies you in an icy-fist-around-the-heart, Ron-being-struck-down-by-the-giant-chess-queen manner.

"Tom!" you scream, a cry that goes quite beyond the mere verbal.

But it's a pair of globular eyes and a pointy nose that peek around the door in terror. Biddy, Giddy, whatever.

"Get Riddle down here," you command harshly. "Right now!"

The poor thing dashes off like a cat with its tail burning. The house-elves adore you, usually. After Lucius described to you in lurid colours the fate that would await you should another of the elves ever find themselves with clothing, you've compensated with impeccable politeness, which annoys him to no small degree.

Lucius... it's the second time that night that you find yourself crying.

Tom makes his appearance much faster than you'd expected, wand in hand, rage blooming on his face. Oh. So whatever called him, it was neither the elf nor your voice. When he notices Lucius, he's beside you in an instant. His hands move tentatively over the body.

"Cruciatus." Anger chokes the normally calm voice.

"There is something else," you point out. Don't think about what happened earlier. This is not the time. "Something... has been taken from him."

Tom gives you a very sharp look.

"What are you talking about?"

Oh Merlin, not that again! You're not at all sure he will listen, considering his overblown superiority complex. So well - you're the one running on instinct here. Show him, then.

You grab the collar of his robes and pull him close.

The instant your lips meet, the feeling is back - warmth, paralysis, energy crackling with the sheer, brutal potential for gain or loss. Something shifts very subtly in the balance of power that connects you, even though all you consciously focus on is making him see. It should not feel so good to take in the shocked eyes, to feel the panicked hammering of his pulse under your fingers. But it does. To your intense embarrassment, the raw physical reaction that he forced on you earlier returns in full force. You dig nails into your palm to suppress it, but he never notices.

As soon as you draw back, you're flung down so forcefully that you end up flat on your back on the mahogany parquet floor. Tom looks drained, almost scared, and a mad flame flickers in his eyes. His wand is aimed right at your throat and you practically feel the curses taking shape around it before the words ever leave his mouth. Not the Avada Kedavra - he doesn't need to risk that. He has, of course, dozens of safe options to kill a Muggle.

Disregarding the wand, you stare directly into his eyes.

"Now, look at him," you order flatly. The searing hatred is almost as painfully intense as a curse would be. "Look!" you repeat, and to your surprise, the calm in your voice is merely a reflection of your state of mind. Things have changed, indeed.

And yet, it astonishes you to see him obey. He turns his eyes to look at Lucius, and gasps, and you know that now he can see it, too. His hand moves to the Dark Mark on the Death Eater's arm.

"Voldemort," he growls. "When he touches the Mark, he's able to draw energy from his Death Eaters into himself."

"Can you reverse the spell?" you ask.

Tom's sharp face is pinched with tension. He gets up quickly.

"I'll have to look something up." The way he looks - the barely controlled insecurity - it scares you.

"Your lover is lying there with his soul almost sucked out, and you want to go to the library?"

It isn't fair, and you know it as soon as the words leave your mouth, but you're terrified, and he has no right to sound so much like Hermione.

"I will not let him die," he hisses. "But you better hope my research comes up with a result, because otherwise..." He stops, and really, elaboration isn't necessary at all.

You rise to your knees and place Lucius' head in your lap gently. There is something fragile - almost beautiful - about him in this state, as if beauty were too afraid to creep over his features in consciousness.

You've experienced your share of helplessness in this house, but nothing ever came close to this. Muggle first aid classes are so woefully insufficient when it comes to countering the Cruciatus effects, even more whatever damage the Dark Lord has done to Lucius' essence. In vain, you rail at that raw, irrational impulse, but it's been there ever since he protected you in the Chamber of Secrets. Protected not Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, just Harry. Ticked off both his coveted prize and his 'Lord' in the process, for whatever warped reason. And you cannot even curse him for making you feel this way. Nor would you want to.

~ ~ ~

Tom's stint in the library doesn't even take half an hour. It feels like decades. He Re-Apparates in with a forbidding, leather-bound tome in his hand, and a dark, determined glint in his eye.

"You've found something."

"Yes." He throws the book down beside you with considerable force.

Dark Marks: Think Twice Before Getting Branded is printed on the cover in ornate, antiquated letters.

"It's quite simple, really," he explains. "Voldemort robbed him of life energy - the solution is to replace it."

"How are you going to do that?"

"Oh, I'm not. You will." You look up with a sense of deep suspicion.

"Come again?"

"As I said, it's a simple Dark Arts ritual, used by wizards to fortify their own powers with the life essence of others, mainly Muggles, who are expendable. And aren't we lucky to have one right here?"

You stare at him in sheer disbelief. "It certainly didn't take you long to come up with a plan to kill me."

He looks down at you very coldly, then nods at the man in your lap.

"This is your fault, Potter! And you will undo it."

"My fault?" you sputter. "I would never do anything to-"

"Why do you think the Dark Lord would torture one of his most loyal servants in this way?" he hisses. "Lucius Malfoy was at Hogwarts the day you disappeared from there, you miserable pile of Porlock dung! Everybody suspects he had something to do with it, but while Dumbledore is restrained by such trivialities as lack of proof, the Dark Lord definitely is not. He suspects, Harry. That's why he tried to break him. And we have yet to see whether he has succeeded."

A burning lump of misery coils itself in your throat.

"I never asked for this," you whisper.

"No?" The rage on his face is replaced by an expression of such spiteful, smiling tenderness it almost sends you running. While you may not fear his curses, being the full focus of that inhuman malice is almost more than you can bear.

"Then what were you looking for, down there in the Chamber? What were you thinking, going after a known, powerful Dark Wizard, alone, into a place where no one could help you?" He cups your cheek with his hand, so terribly gently. "Were you looking for death, Harry?"

You bite your lip and look away. That is a train of thought you'd rather not board. You don't know if you know the answer to this, yourself. You don't know if you want to.

"I think you like to dance with death, Harry," the soft voice continues mercilessly. "And now, you'll have another chance." It sounds ominous, and the gleeful undertone is anything but reassuring. "A blood rite, Harry. Blood is life, after all."

"How come you're not doing it, then," you object, more from habit than sincere opposition. "You have far more power than I do."

"Because it takes a wizard to conduct the ritual, and considering my current... incarnation, my essence would be more than tainted. And of course I wouldn't risk my life for anyone, even Lucius. So..."

You lower your head in defeat, brushing a tendril of pale hair out of Lucius' slack face. No choice at all.

"So how..."

Tom produces your little fruit knife from his robe pocket and kneels next to you, Accio!ing the book to him. With another wand's flick and a look of intense concentration on his face, he conjures a circle of bright red candles around you. Their flames burn in a subdued orange that seems to throw almost tangible shadows through the circle, wavering like shadow tendrils.

Tom murmurs a spell, takes your right hand and interlaces it with Lucius' so tightly that you feel your pulse beats mingling. It feels as if the same blood is running from veins to heart to heart, the same pulse pounding in your lips and fingertips. Not a linking of minds, but of essence. When Tom takes your left wrist and turns it up, exposing the vulnerable artery, you look up in wordless anguish. Trapped with no way out, again. He acknowledges the admission with a nod and runs a thumb over your lips.

"I swear I will kill you, Harry," he promises gently. "But not today. Not unless it's necessary."

Deciding that it's completely irrelevant whether you believe him or not, you silently hand him your wrist. The little knife is drawn over it, once, in a straight, deep cut that opens the vein neatly. Blood pours out in a steady rivulet of black, streaking down your hand, over Lucius' arm and dark robes, until it spills onto the ground, weaves itself around the candles in a steady line, like a snake, another shadow tendril, the fluid coil of a whip. A dull pain cuts right down to the secret caverns of your heart. At the very border of your consciousness, you hear Tom chanting, and the trail of blood seems to twist and turn itself into symbols or sigils on the polished parquet floor with every change of tone.

Instinctively, you put your bleeding hand over the rough skin of Lucius' Dark Mark. The cold ache increases, spilling into your nerves and tweaking each and every one awake with a vengeance, but it feels right, like the closing of a circuit. But Merlin, does it hurt!

Cold spears through your very core, avalanches through your veins, sucking out every shred of warmth inside you. The only patch of heat left is the Mark under your fingers, searing almost, and you spread your hand over it to catch as much as possible.

And yet the ice gradually encases you, until you sink down under the cold like under the soft blanket of winter's first snow. Slowly. Inevitable.

~ ~ ~

An indeterminable time later, you're vaguely aware of a floating sensation, and even later, of a warm hand being placed soothingly on your chilled brow. You never learn whose, or whether it wasn't a dream. Voices, familiar enough, but you're too tired to put a name to them. A warming charm sizzles through you, not enough to chase off the cold altogether, but it stops your teeth from chattering and allows you to fall asleep again.

And then, even later, you finally open your eyes to the familiar sight of the Slytherin-coloured canopy of your four-poster. You feel more than you see somebody looming at the foot of the bed.

Tom again, looking down at you with an inscrutable expression on his face.

"Lucius?"

"Recovered. Resting." He pauses. "You... did well."

You glance down at your wrist. The cut has healed into a curved, black scar that is shaped almost like a snake. A tender, tingly feeling still surrounds it, the aftermath of a strong flesh-knitting charm. Another curse scar you will have to live with. A far better memory than the last.

"What now?" you ask.

The granite eyes narrow.

"The Dark Lord will have to die, as quickly as possible." You nod quietly. There is nothing to argue about that. "Nobody lays a hand on one of mine and lives." You smile inwardly, only too well aware of how Lucius would react if he were here to hear this. But Tom is right. You have to stop standing in each other's way. If anything, today has taught you that.

"I'd like to propose a truce," you venture carefully. "Until we have succeeded." He just keeps looking at you, giving no indication of his thoughts. "Because now Voldemort knows," you continue. "Lucius chose to return home - which nearly killed him - instead of begging Voldemort to spare his life. Madam Narcissa left for Nassau months ago, and Draco is at school. If Lucius lives, Voldemort will know someone helped him. That something is afoot. We'll have to move before he does."

Tom nods, very thoughtfully, and holds out his hand.

"A temporary truce, then." You take it, just as carefully, and for an instant, the pulsating feeling is back. The closing of another circuit.

"Until the Dark Lord is dead, then," he confirms. "And as to that, Harry - we have a plan..."

~~~ tbc. ~~~