A/N, Why, hello there, my long-suffering readers of this story! (If indeed there are any of you left.)

Welp, the world's gone crazy, everything is cancelled, self-isolation is a Thing ... so what better way to ignore reality, than to hunker down with a nice spot of fanfiction? And so I present to you...an actual chapter! *gasp*

If you follow me as an author, you will know that I've been concentrating on my other WIP 'The Governess' last year. However, I have NOT abandoned this story! I just haven't been in a great head-space for writing angst. (And believe me, this chapter has a-PLENTY.)

I would like to thank all of you who have encouraged me with your generous words. Also, to my small group of ffic friends: Anna P, Laura, Ana, Anna malcheek, Marjorie, Irinka, Mel and Karla, I send you my love.

Now, about this chapter. Warning: it contains violence. It also includes mentions of sexual violence, suicide and major character death. Oh, and sorry about the cliff-hanger. (Oops, I did it again!)

Hope you...enjoy?

xox artful

...

Last time...

...When I next looked up, Lucius's dark twin was gone, and in his place stood The Woman; smaller in size, yet somehow infinitely more monstrous; as lovely and loathsome as ever in her black-feathered ball gown.

"Now..." she said in her sweet, bell-like voice. "We're all going to have a little fun..."

...

Chapter 32 The Silence Fell Away

...

I scrabbled on my hands and knees to where Lucius knelt, filled with horror at his sewn lips and the ropes slithering like black eels about his bare chest. He shook his head at me, warning me not to approach, but I was desperate, maddened, to go to him, to somehow free him.

Staggering to stand, I grasped a rope encircling his neck, and tugged it with both hands as hard as I could. There was a sizzling noise and I shrieked in agony, letting go and stumbling backwards. I heard the Woman giggling as I stared down at my palms and fingers, welting and blistering as if I had pressed them upon a hot stove-top.

"I'm sorry!" I gasped, cradling my shaking hands against my own exposed torso. "I'm s-sorry!"

"Why on earth should you apologise to him, mudblood?" the Woman asked in a playfully-puzzled voice. "He's the one who broke his word. Remember how he told you he could look after himself? How he promised he'd look after you? ...Well, I hate to break it to you, but he was quite wrong on both counts."

She waved her hand gracefully, and one of the heavy fire-side chairs scraped heavily across the floorboards, coming to stop beside her in the middle of the dining-room. The Woman dropped down into it, assuming a carelessly-elegant aspect, her booted feet neatly crossed at the ankles, like a spectator waiting for a pantomime to begin.

"...It's rather typical of a man, isn't it?" she continued, resting her lovely chin on one ivory hand and regarding us both with leisurely amusement. "Despite what they would have you believe, it is men who are really the weaker sex. They labour under a great misapprehension: that their physical advantage must equate to a superiority of mind. In actuality, it only serves to inflate their egos, and ill-prepares them for the moment when a woman wages war against them." She arched a taunting eyebrow at Lucius. "Isn't that right, my loving brother? Didn't you sadly misjudge your powers against mine?"

Lucius violently thrashed against his bonds again, his muscles convulsing, the tendons in his neck straining.

The Woman seemed only the-more amused. She tutted mockingly. "Ah...such impotent rage. Is it because I speak the truth? You know, it really is a pitiful thing, how easily a woman can manipulate a man, through his ingrained sense of mastery over her. All she need do, is pretend to fear and admire him in equal parts—to simper at his gallantry and tremble at his displeasure—and he is like putty in her hands."

Suddenly bending her diabolic black gaze upon me, she beckoned me with a curl of one finger. I shrieked as a powerful magnetic energy dragged me, like the chair, across the floor towards her, throwing me to the ground at her feet with such force that my forehead violently struck the hard-wood floorboards. Head reeling and hands burning, I lay, panting and prone on the floor, limp and dizzy with pain.

"As for you, little darling," I heard her murmur softly, as she prodded my chest with one of her sharp-pointed boots, "...you didn't need to pretend, did you? You've been like a poor, beaten spaniel, ready to lick the boot that kicked you, since the moment you first arrived. I don't suppose any man could have resisted such a delectable display of reluctant submission, slaves as they are to their carnal instincts. ...I'll say this for you, Luci, you held out much longer than expected. Your self-control is almost—almost—laudable, given it is not a strong suit of yours. Indeed, I really thought you might buckle that very first night, when Miss Mudblood fainted in your arms so charmingly. I know it crossed your mind."

Dully, through a dark fog of dizziness, I recalled the painting that hissed at me on the night of my arrival. Had those snake eyes belonged, not to the 'Sidonia Slytherin' in the portrait, but to Her?

"It was ever so entertaining," she continued, "watching you struggle against the impulse to violently avenge yourself, there, on the hallway floor, like a common ruffian. Remember how you tore her dress? How you put your hands around her throat? (You didn't know that, did you, little worm?) ...But your good breeding—or was it your pride?—got the better of you that time, didn't it, brother-mine?" She gave a contented little sigh. "I'm ever so glad. This would not be half so much fun, if you hadn't gone and fallen in love with the little bitch."

Blinking vision back into my eyes, I saw Lucius's gaze levelled to hers, his narrowed eyes burning with a white-hot fury. If such a look had been directed at me, I would have shied from it in terror, but the Woman merely laughed. "Now, now, Lucius, there's no need to put yourself in a pet. Just because you don't like the truth, doesn't make it any less true. ...Ah, how enraged you are! You look as if you should like to murder me, and we've barely even started! ...But that only proves my point, you know. Men are all brag and bravado, storming and brandishing their wands—whilst we women bide our time quietly, and strike but once, when we know the curse will be fatal."

I flinched as her boot moved up to my throat, the point stabbing into the soft flesh under my chin. "Oh yes..." she said, gazing down at me, although still speaking to Lucius, "...it is we women who play the longer, deeper game... Even our little worm here refused to acquiesce to you, until she had you grovelling on your knees. Which puts me in a rather curious position of respecting her, more than I do you." A horrible, tender smile curved her ruby lips. "Don't let it go to your head, darling," she whispered to me. As she smiled, I was disorientingly reminded of the beautiful woman in the locket, and something clicked. The Woman wasn't Lucius's sister, she was his wife's sister. I should have seen it before: it was almost like comparing a black-and-white photo with its negative.

I was so distracted that at first I did not notice her gaze begin to penetrate the periphery of my mind. Only when I became aware of a strange sifting sensation, like tentacles softly shuffling through my memories, did I realise what she was doing. A shuddering breath expelled from my lips and I jerked my head to one side, breaking off her intrusive stare. "Get out!" I whispered fiercely.

"Oh, come now, sweetie, I only wanted a little peek," she said with a teasing pout. "Just one or two juicy little details, to satisfy my curiosity. Did it hurt very much, when he took you?" She sighed. "...I remember my first time; a girl always does, of course. I'm sorry to say my husband was rather rough with me. He didn't know the first thing about pleasing or preparing a woman; nor did he care. I was younger than you, mudblood, and I barely knew him..." Her gaze detached and a slow smile spread over her face, as if indulging some nostalgic reminiscence. "The brute made me bleed quite badly," she mused, "...but I returned the favour in kind." Her fingers flexed and her vicious, talon-like nails drummed upon the arms of the chair.

After a moment, she shook her glossy black curls and her obsidian eyes fastened upon me again. "But you...you had quite the enjoyable experience, didn't you? He was so gentle, so chivalrous with you. It really is enough to make one sick to contemplate. Of course, I never doubted it would happen eventually. Men are such predictable creatures. Throw a helpless girl into a man's clutches, and a thousand times to one, he will either ravish, seduce, or fall in love with her. And sometimes," she added with a little yawn, "he will do all three."

She leant back in the chair, the toe of her laced boot still digging into my throat, the heel uncomfortably pressing my collar bone. "Cissy must be rolling in her unmarked grave," she said. "Just imagine, one's own husband fucking a mudblood, when one is barely cold in the ground! What a cheap desecration of twenty years of marriage...it really is too, too bad."

As she commenced this taunting speech, her skirts fractionally shifted, and there was a glint of silver at her ankle.

My breath caught. It was her dagger. I was sure of it.

In the single blink of an eye, my mind was crowded with countless thoughts, possibilities, consequences. Grab the knife. Jump up and plunge it in her heart. Simple. But nothing is ever simple. What if the knife won't come out of her boot? What if I miss her heart? Maybe she has no heart. Then what? What happens to me, to Lucius, if I try and fail?

...What happens to us if I don't try?

She will kill us. We will die. There is nothing to lose, Alice!

I lunged for the dagger, barely noticing the pain of my burnt fingers as I gripped the handle and wrenched it upward, pulling it free. Rolling over, I threw myself toward her with a screech of determination, aiming the knife for the exposed upper swell of her alabaster breast.

A burst of light blinded me, there was an explosion of pain in my forehead like the strike of a hammer, and I reeled backwards, into blackness.

...Pain took me away from myself, and pain escorted me back again, drilling down into my skull, throbbing through my hands and shooting up my arms. The rest of me felt heavy, immobile, a block of wood nailed to the floor.

There was a cheerful, tuneful humming from somewhere above me. So, I had not killed her, then. So, she had not killed me.

"Wakey, wakey, little wormy."

A playful slap to my cheek. My eyes blinked reluctantly open. I was lying face-up, my arms stretched out, and She was kneeling over me, smiling down into my face.

"Ah, there it is!" she said. "You're missing all the fun, darling. I've just finished." She held something before my eyes, so close that it took me some moments to focus upon it. It was her dagger, and the silver blade was covered with blood. A large bead pooled upon the point, then slowly dripped onto my cheek. It was warm.

With a rustle of silk and feathers, she stood up, looking me over appraisingly. "Much better," she said. "See, Luci? I've added some more decoration, just for you."

There was an excruciating, burning rawness in my right arm, the exposed pain of a newly-inflicted wound.

I didn't want to look, I didn't want to know. But I had to. Turning my head to the right, I beheld the red-stained sleeve of my dress bunched up above my elbow, revealing a row of large, jagged letters spanning the length of my inner forearm, smeared and oozing with fresh blood.

W-H-O-R-E

I stared at it, comprehension fighting with disbelief. In some strange way, the absolute monstrosity of that word numbed me, dulling the pain. I turned my head the other way and discovered that I was now lying quite closely to Lucius, in fact only a few feet away. He looked ill, his skin as white and lustreless as chalk, his eyes fixed stonily ahead.

"It doesn't matter," I said in an odd, flat tone. "I don't care." But he did not respond.

The Woman advanced to where Lucius knelt, smiling down at him.

"Did you hear that, Lucius?" she murmured in a conspiratorial tone. "The mudblood doesn't care. But you care, don't you? You care ever so much." Her head tilted thoughtfully. "What's worse, I wonder?—That you cannot defend yourself, or that you cannot protect her?" She reached out to stroke a tendril of his hair back from his temple; he did not flinch, but his sewn lips pressed in a hard line. "...It's so humiliating to lose your powers, isn't it? To be as weak and worthless as a little muggle whelp. Believe me, I know what it's like. After the Weasley sow cursed me, I could not even Accio a crow's-quill for a year."

She began to circle him, taking slow, predatory steps as she spoke.

"At least my sacrifice meant something," she said. "At least I believed in my cause, and was loyal unto the very last. But you...you always took the coward's path, didn't you?" Her lip curled with contempt. "Using your gold coins and your silver tongue to curry favour with whomever held the whip-hand. Oh, yes: the only conviction you ever subscribed to was the Preservation of Lucius Abraxas Malfoy and his glittering empire. ...But it was all for nothing, wasn't it? You still lost everything. Your wife, your son, your career, your home..." She glanced over to where I lay on the floor. "And now you've lost your power, too." She laughed. "The funniest thing about it all is, you have no-one to blame but yourself. It's one of the first lessons we learn as children, isn't it, brother-dear?" In a childish tone she chanted,

"If one plays with cursed ob-jects,
One will end up hurt or hexed!"

I knew she was talking about me. I was the cursed object.

"Do you want to know something else that's terribly funny, Lucius? How needlessly cruel you were to your precious little mudblood. She was so very convenient a target for your blind rage. First, you blamed her for darling Draco's tragic death, then for Cissy's oh-so-pathetic demise. But it wasn't really her fault they died, after all." She came to a standstill behind him. Leaning in, eyes shining diabolically, she murmured, "It...was...mine."

For a moment, Lucius became deathly-still, as if her words were a paralytic venom poured into his ear. Suddenly his face contorted, his body arched, and he began to thrash with frantic violence, struggling and writhing against his bonds, until his hair clung to his face and neck with sweat, and his chest heaved erratically with exertion. Then all at once the fight seemed to drain from him, his shoulders slumped forwards, and his head bowed to his chest in defeat.

The Woman tsk'd mockingly, then moved back to resume her seat.

"If only you could see yourself," she said after regarding him for a moment. "So gloriously pitiful. I've waited so long to see you break, and I want to do it properly. After all, it was really all your fault we lost the war. Your incompetence and Cissy's betrayal. You deserved to lose everything, both of you—not least your worthless lives. Imagine my chagrin, when I returned to discover that not only were you alive and well, but you had slithered your way out of punishment, once again! That my nephew had turned muggle-loving blood-traitor! He even saved the little worm's life, did you know that? She would have fallen to her death, if he hadn't heroically swooped in to the rescue..."

At this mention, I recalled that recurring image, of tumbling down and down, of a hand reaching out to catch mine, and the echo of words, "Hold on to me..." So, those grey eyes had indeed belonged to Lucius's son...

"I was there that day, watching from the treetops," the Woman continued. "That's all I could do for a long, long time. Just watch, and wait, and plan how I was going to destroy your lives, as you had so thoroughly destroyed mine. I can't tell you how much satisfaction I derived when I finally had the chance to kill two birds with one stone. Cissy's little mummy's-boy and the Weasley sow's ugly brat! I was even there at Draco's burial, Lucius. I had a lovely view from the old oak by the Malfoy mausoleum. The funeral rites were ever so touching. ...I remember it was snowing, and your faces were just as perfectly white. I knew it wouldn't take much to finish Cissy off after that. I visited her regularly, you know. I always made sure to bring a gift: a nice, vivid dream for her to dwell on. My favourite was her darling son, being eaten alive by maggots. Remember how she would wake up screaming? How she would beg you to exhume his body?" She gave a short, cruel chuckle. "It wasn't long before she was afraid to go to sleep. And once someone stops sleeping altogether, it's really only a matter of time before they shrivel up and die...or, better yet, kill themselves."

There was a pause, then with a little gasp of mock-surprise, the Woman said, "Oh dear, you - you're not crying, are you, Lucius?"

From my place on the floor, I could see the moisture dripping down his cheeks and onto his bare chest. If I could have moved, not even the scorching heat of the black ropes would have prevented me from throwing my bleeding arms around him.

But I couldn't move. All I could do was choke out a few strangled, futile words. "Please, stop it." My own tears trailed wet warmth down each temple. "Please."

"Begging again, Little Miss Mudblood Whore?" she said airily. "Since trying to kill me didn't work, you thought perhaps that asking nicely might do the trick?" She regarded me with her horrible swivelling-black gaze. "You know, don't you darling, that this isn't about you? It never has been. You are nothing more than an object of which Lucius and I have both made our uses. He has used you as a plaything, for his vindictive amusement and selfish pleasure. Whereas I... I shall use you as a tool, to mete out his punishment and pain." She smiled. Then, straightening up, she clapped her hands sharply, twice. "But first things, first!" Holding out her left hand as if ready to receive something, she called loudly, "Accio necklace!"

Seconds later, a glinting object flew through the door and into her waiting palm. With one long, curved nail, she lifted up what proved to be a silver chain, from which dangled a small pendant. Although I could barely see it in the gloomy darkness of the room, I knew that it was the bird-skull necklace which Lucius had ripped off my neck, the evening of my arrival. The same one I had glimpsed in his bureau six weeks later, moments before he had slammed the drawer on my fingers.

She stared intently at it. "Ah, how I've missed this pretty piece," she said. "But of course, it had to stay close to you, mudblood, for the charm to stay as strong as it did." She turned and looked at me with a raised eyebrow. "I think I'll take it back now, if you don't mind...but we had better empty it out first, hadn't we?"

She closed in, and I could feel my prone body quaking in response to her nearing proximity, though I could not physically recoil from her.

"No!" I cried out. "Don't!"

She stood over me, the necklace still dangling from her talon-like fingernail. "Don't what, little worm? You want to remember, don't you? After all, you're going to die very soon...don't you want to know the truth first?"

There was a moment of strange stillness, as if my heart had abruptly stopped its savage beating, and my breath had died in my lungs. All was silent, within and without me, except the echo of that question—You want to remember, don't you?—reverberating around the great empty chasm in my mind, where my memory used to belong.

My eyes fixed with fascination and terror upon the silver pendant, swinging slowly above my face. I could not even hear my own voice as it left my trembling lips. "I...I...don't know..." I whispered. Then, slipping from my mouth on a shuddering breath: "...Yes."

And the silence fell away. My heart resumed its heavy drumming, I could hear the shallow, puffing gasps I was making.

A condescending smile curved her mouth, like one might give a stupid child. "But of course you do. It's all you've ever wanted, since the moment I ripped your memories out of your swotty little head. Although, going by his expression, I'm afraid our dear Luci is not quite so enthusiastic about the idea. Oh! I can hardly wait to see the look on your face! I wonder with whom you will be more disgusted: him, or yourself. Perhaps Lucius will even have the decency to be ashamed of himself. ...I shall hardly know which of you to look at."

She made an elegant swiping motion of her hand, and I felt the muscles of my body spasm as they were released from their invisible bonds. "On your knees, mudblood," she murmured.

I obeyed her with difficulty, shaking badly, the room swaying as I sat up and turned to kneel. I could not bring myself to look at Lucius, afraid of what I might see in his eyes, so I kept my own glued to the empty sockets of the little silver bird-skull. Could such a small thing really contain an entire life's-worth of memories?

The Woman bent forward, tilting my face upward with her right hand, and my eyes were drawn as if by magnets to meet the black void of her gaze. "You had such a wonderful experience being deflowered by your handsome, mysterious inamorato," she said softly. "It was like a dream, wasn't it? You, so helplessly besotted. Him, so tender and gentle." She sighed, the ice of her breath swept over my cheek, raising a prickle of goosebumps over my skin. "However, I doubt you'll find it quite so enchanting, once you discover who he really is."

"You're wrong," I whispered. "I love him. Nothing can change that."

She laughed at this. "Oh, sweetie. I'll remind you of those words, a little later on." Straightening, she held up the pendant to hover between my eyes. "Now, whatever you do...don't move."

She began to make a series of mesmeric, rhythmic gestures with her right hand around the pendant. Her ruby lips moved slightly; she was murmuring something under her breath. The bird-skull began to vibrate, emitting a soft hum. The silence between each beat of my heart stretched into a measureless eternity of suspense, and I thought, 'This must be what it's like to await execution. To wait for the axe to fall.' Because no matter whether I somehow survived this ordeal, no matter if I miraculously lived to breathe another day, Alice was about to die.

'MORS CERTA, HORA INCERTA.' Death is certain; the hour uncertain...

Alice's hour had come.

And Alice was me, she was me, and I didn't want to die.

...'Goodbye, Alice. I'll remember you, I promise. I'll never forget you...' But I didn't even know if that was true.

Then the fingers holding the pendant opened, the silver bird skull dropped onto my forehead and—

Time was rewinding, uncoiling, I was moving backwards through scenes in my mind... limbs entwined on an enormous bed, a windy rooftop at dawn, a crow pecking on a windowpane... The scenes played faster and faster until they were nothing more than flashes in my head: a truck cabin, a wall of vines, bandaged hands, a cruel kiss...a rattling door, a room of blank books, a drink spilled down a muddy dress...

Then one image, brighter and more enduring than the rest...a tall man with snow-blond hair standing in the rain, hatred burning in his silver eyes...

Then I was running again, running through a forest, fog blanketing and billowing all around me, running towards a distant hazy orb of white light, towards the echo of faint screaming and chiming laughter... the light grew brighter, the laughing grew louder, the screaming became more and more piercing, saturating the air with maddening shrillness, until there was no place left for it to go but inside me, down my throat, and I was the one who was screaming, screaming, screaming...

...

A/N Thank you for reading! Please leave a morsel of comment for me to nibble on :) Now go and read something really fluffy!