𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐆𝐈𝐑𝐋 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐒𝐓𝐎𝐏𝐏𝐄𝐃 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐖𝐀𝐑

the one with the story of lion and men

"There are no bargains between lion and men. I will kill you and eat you raw."

•

EVERY TIME I JOKED about having a cup of tea with Voldemort, I didn't think for a second that one day it'd be true and that is actually be sitting with Tom Riddle in the Malfoy's sitting room, with a cup of tea. I stared at the swirling black liquid in my cup, in the gleaming, polished new china, as I contemplated drinking it.

"It is not spiked with poison," I heard him say. He was sitting opposite to me, in a large throne-like armchair, leaning back casually causing, putting his own cup to his mouth. He was dressed so formally it made it extremely hard to fathom that the man in front of me was possibly the Darkest Wizard ever to exist. He was dressed like Harry's dream, in a smart black suit and every time I looked at him, his slit-like eyes and noseless face, I saw a shadow of the handsome boy he used to be.

The previous night had been a haze- Narcissa Malfoy had taken me to a spare room in the Malfoy Manor. She left me there wordlessly, without so much as looking at me. I had stared around the bare room- it only had a bed with the Malfoy emblem carved on the headboard. Like every other room in the Manor, the Malfoy family motto was engraved in exquisite cursive on the wall above the bed: Sanctimonia Vincet Semper. There was a table there, bare if not for the few quills and parchments, and a floor to ceiling bookshelf stacked with various books I had never seen in my life. I had walked across the room to she shelf and run my fingers along the spines of the hardcovered books. They seemed to call out to me. As I plucked one from it's designated place, I noted the name: The Darkest Forms. Something had plucked inside me as I opened the first page- Property of Abraxas Malfoy. Something in the book seemed to be whispering, something dark and sinister. I shuddered and put it back there.

When I entered the attached bathroom and sank myself in the sweet lilac smelling warm water, washing the fear and the grime off me, I recalled all the events that I could remember. It hadn't been twenty-four hours yet. Harry, Ron and Hermione ought to be in 12, Grimmauld Place by now. They must have received the Weasel Patronus from Mr Weasley stating that their family was safe and being watched. I wondered if he informed them about me getting kidnapped and I hoped desperately that they don't drop my instructions of hunting the Horcrux and instead come looking for me.

A feeling crept my spine as I thought what would happen to me if they didn't come looking for me. I half hoped they did for being in the same house as Death Eaters and Voldemort made me uneasy, even if Voldemort seemed to want nothing but to speak with me. He seemed charming, I thought with a shudder. No wonder so many people believed what he preached. I shook my head, the thoughts of evil pouring out of my ears. I really hoped Harry didn't decide to do something noble and simply found a new plan to get the Cup of Helga Hufflepuff from Gringotts. I hadn't been able to figure out a way for how they'd enter, for I didn't have a clue unless they had Bellatrix's hair. I should've read more headcanons while I had the chance, I thought with a frown. Maybe I'd have known a different way for them to get in. But I didn't. And all I could do was dote on Hermione's wonderful brain, praying she finds a way.

I wondered what was happening in the Burrow, if they were worried for me. They knew Harry left by choice, but they saw me being snatched, kidnapped. I prayed Draco didn't do anything stupid to get me back. No, he wouldn't, said a voice in my head, the rational voice that I ignored most of the time. He had asked me no less than twenty-four hours ago, 'You'd stay here right?' so hopefully that it broke my heart that I wasn't there with him. He was now alone in the Burrow with his thoughts and imaginations of what could happen to me.