The Mark of a Death Eater : Sequel

Chapter Six

I woke up long before the sun rose and found it difficult to fall back to sleep. The little watch by my side pointed out that it was far too early for anyone else to be awake. I glanced to my left and saw Draco sprawled on top of the sheets. I carefully stepped out of bed and onto the cold floor. Everything about this house was cold, even the hearts of its inhabitants.
Especially the hearts.

I covered Draco with the sheets, because he'd kicked them aside in the night, and made my way to my room.

On my way, I heard voices. It was too faint to make out words from the stairs so I tiptoed downstairs and followed the voices. A louder, harsher whisper caught my attention and brought me to the entrance of the big house.
Lingering by a doorway, I could see the shadows on the exquisite carpets cast by the lamps. Narcissa and Bellatrix. I struggled to make out the words and edged closer to the shadows, sticking to the walls.

"...be separated?"
"Draco and the girl won't be given their punishments together. They'll have to fulfill them alone."
"What makes you think Draco's will be worse than Emma's?" Narcissa's voice.
"The girl isn't the Dark Lord's main concern. She was put into this, but this was Draco's task. And besides, she doesn't spark much interest in anyone. She's not of high blood, not one of the twenty-eight. The Evergreen name is pure, but their loyalties do not lie with us. Her family is scattered, her friends left her alone. She doesn't have much here."
"What will they have to do?"
"You'll find out come morning, Cissy. I myself am not sure." There was a sniff of disdain. No doubt Bellatrix thought she ought to have know her master's plan.  Although, between you and I, The Dark Lord has something special planned for the girl, apart from her punishment."

My arm brushed along a cabinet as I tried to get closer.
"You do not know what it is," Narcissa said.
"I've been busy, what with wandmakers  imprisonment. Bellatrix sounded defensive. "That's also with the Carrow's soon-to-be placement at Hogwarts, and the foolish muggle studies teacher."
Narcissa made a small noise of objection. "I cannot understand why you would prefer to keep them here."
"Your cellar does nicely for the wandmaker. And The Dark Lord plans on getting rid of the filthy muggle lover tonight. Your cellar will be as good as empty Cissy."
"You know I wish nothing but to serve, and giving my home is but all I can do..."
She trailed off, unsure, but her sister pressed her.
"What, Cissy? Speak."
Narcissa hesitated. "The house is full of people. The Dark Lord will be arriving by evening, and with him will come Severus Snape, with news about the boy."
"And?"
"That means we'll leave for Harry Potter soon! The children... they'll have to face their punishments by tomorrow. How can we handle all of this?"
There was a long moment of silence, and when Bellatrix spoke, her voice was icy.
"You are sworn to The Dark Lord. Need I remind you-"
"No, you need not." Narcissa cut her sister off.
"What is it you worry for so much, sister?"

I pressed closer to the wall, my arm brushing a candlestick. 

Before Narcissa could answer, there was a loud clang and I gasped inadvertently. The candlestick had fallen noisily onto the floor.

"What was that?" Bellatrix asked sharply.
"I don't know." The shadows on the floor writhed and moved and I made a dash for the stairs.
"I thought you said they were asleep!"
"They are, Bella."

I ran so fast and light that I couldn't hear myself as I flew up to Draco's room. I dove in the bed as I heard footsteps outside the room and for good measure, tossed my arm over Draco's waist. I breathed in and out evenly as I heard the door creak.

"See? I told you," came Narcissa's hushed voice.
There was a long moment of silence, and then the sound of Bellatrix's heeled boots faded away. I counted to fifty and opened my eyes. They were gone.

I let out a sigh of relief and involuntarily crept closer to Draco.

If the nights darkness doesn't swallow you whole, you wake in the morn covered in gold.
___

I couldn't fall back to sleep, what with the thoughts of torture banging around my head, but I didn't want to go downstairs that early either. When I was sure the sisters had passed, I went to get Tom Riddle's book (and a pin) from my room. The book weighed me down as I carried it to Draco's room and settled it against a pillow. In the darkness the green cover looked almost black, but I could make out the outline of Slytherin's snake wrought in silver. I pricked my finger harder than I intended with the pin and held it to the depression. "Anguem recludem."

I skipped over Salazar Slytherin's notes on his life. I'd read them all and in the process discovered a few things that would make librarians and historians jump for joy. I would keep those to myself, however. There were some things better left unsaid.

I flipped to Tom Riddle's story. There was his introduction, written in a queer mixture of ruins and Latin that I couldn't understand. A brief history of his came next. The story of his life in a muggle orphanage, the search for his family; bitterness and more bitterness.

Within the few hours that it took for the sun to rise and the lower part of the house to come alive, I'd completed half of Tom Riddle's diary. Once I'd opened it I couldn't seem to stop reading.

Born in 1926. Grew up in Wool's Orphanage in London. Parseltongue. Wand: Thirteen and a half inches, yew, phoenix feather core, Ollivanders. Loved by all the staff. Head Boy. Perfect marks. Large group of admirers.

The facts flashed in my head as I read. Most of the beginning was filled with things of his past. It was nothing personal, nothing that most of his peers wouldn't know.

It began to get interesting when it came to his heritage. Tom Riddle, at first, did not know which one of his parents were pure blooded. The book was filled with research as he hunted for any connection he had to the wizarding world. His research I found to be exhausting and extensive, and perhaps a little obsessive. But, putting myself in his shoes, I realized that if I didn't know who my parents were, I would do the same. Slytherin's part of the book was mostly about his background and family, so it made sense that Tom Riddle's writing would follow that pattern.
After much research using his middle name, Marvolo, Tom found a connection to the old pure blooded descendants of Salazar Slytherin, the Gaunts. Marvolo, his grandfather, his uncle Morfin, and the woman he soon found out was his mother, Merope.

His Slytherin ancestry gave him a gift: the Chamber of Secrets. Tom mentioned very little about this, glossing over this part, undoubtedly in case the book fell into the wrong hands.
This made me wonder, not for the first time, that why, if this book was so frightfully exclusive and dangerous, was it simply hidden under a creaky floorboard in a library. It should have been given a lot more protection that just that.

Then something strange happened in the book. It took an abrupt change. After Tom's notes about the Chamber, and the pages and pages of his monotonous research on ancestry, he stopped writing. The sickly perfect black handwriting didn't show up again. Instead, it was replaced by a much untidier hand, in blue ink, written with heavy loops and scrawls.

In the summer between his fifth and sixth year, Tom traced his family back to Little Hangleton, where he went to learn more about them. He found his uncle, who, far from impressive, mentioned his father. When Tom demanded to know more, Morfin told him the story of his muggle family. This angered Tom to the point of seeking revenge. In that summer of 1943, Tom went to the Riddle House, and killed his father and muggle grandparents with the Avada Kedavra curse.

And the book ended abruptly.