In Servitude to the Dark || Tom Riddle

𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙏𝙧𝙖𝙞𝙩𝙤𝙧𝙤𝙪𝙨 𝙃𝙤𝙧𝙘𝙧𝙪𝙭

"Silence! Or I will cut you out again. Insanity be damned," Voldemort snarled. The threat must have worked because the raging emotion had quieted. Voldemort sighed in relief, but he knew that small part of him was still seething quietly.

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It wasn't the cold of the dungeons that woke Aster up. Her body was so chilled, that she no longer felt the cold or even the grating stone of the dungeon floor against her bare skin. No, it was the flash of pain through her scar. Aster groaned and curled up tighter until she could press her knee against her forehead in a fruitless attempt to alleviate the pain. The only time Aster ever felt like this was when Marvolo forcefully entered her mind or when Aster accidentally shared a vision with Marvolo.

Somewhere, somehow, Marvolo was raving mad, and Aster giggled a little insanely. "Give Him hell for me," she rasped.

It was then she realized she could hear herself again, which meant the silencing charm had faded!

Another flash of pain hit her in the head and it suddenly dawned on Aster that maybe Marvolo was trying to contact her. The tiny spark of hope was like a powerful pepper-up, rejuvenating her. Aster quickly dropped all her occlumency shields, waiting for some sign or something from Marvolo. A few minutes later, there was another blast of pain to her scar, more painful than before because her shields were down, but alas Aster couldn't sense her friend anywhere.

The crushing wave of disappointment was almost as bad as when Voldemort first abandoned her here. Aster's only comfort was knowing that Marvolo was somewhere still fighting, and that meant Aster couldn't just give up either. Marvolo certainly wouldn't approve of Aster dying such an ignoble death as exsanguination or hypothermia.

And then there was Severus.

Aster could already hear him snarling. "Bleeding to death is no excuse for such laziness, Potter! Where is that lauded Gryffindor bravery and bullheaded stubbornness! Pick yourself up and think!"

Aster grumbled and pushed herself to a sitting position, a slow process since she was still bound and all her wounds were still leaking sluggishly. It seemed the coldness of the dungeon was actually helping to keep her from bleeding to death.

"Okay, think," Aster said out loud if only to hear more than that infernal dripping in the back corner.

Naturally, the first thing she needed was access to her magic. While her core was flaring and whipping up a frenzy inside, the magic suppressors in here prevented her from releasing all that pent-up energy. Aster only knew a couple of ways magic could be suppressed. The first was through a magical object, like shackles or some kind of device. Aster literally wore nothing besides the magical ropes that bound her, and the only other thing in here was the bars of the dungeon door. Aster didn't even have a bowl of water.

Another method was through blood magic, but Aster ruled that out first because she knew no blood arts were cast on her since the ritual. The last method was through specially prepared runes, the kind that could bind demons and ward off certain dark creatures. Aster quickly rolled to her knees, wincing as she did so, and began the painstaking process of looking for the rune, both with her physical and magical senses.

It could have taken minutes or hours, but Aster finally found it, in the south end of her cell. It was inscribed into one of the bricks, magically protected from physical or magical tampering. Aster scratched at it anyway in sheer desperation, and only managed to tear a nail for her troubles, not that she could feel it. Her hands and feet were numbed long ago.

Well, there went that idea. She slumped against the wall, on the cliff edge of despair. She was just so tired...but a small flash of pain in her scar, weaker than before, wouldn't let her give up. Just let me go, Marvolo, Aster pleaded silently. Please. Another flash hit her as if to berate her, and Aster huffed in frustration.