Marked • Tom Riddle

His Prisoner

   In my quivering hands, the little teacup trembled against the china plate as I sat listening to Mother go on about the wedding preparations. I had had no time to think or even process everything I had witnessed through the Dark Lord's journal before I was pulled to Mother's room for some afternoon tea. She tried expressing the urgency of all the things that needed to get done before my imminent wedding, but her words did not reach me. They had no room in my mind for it was being raided with thoughts of my forgotten friend Mila, what she had done, what had been done to her, and how she was still locked in his house. Although what she had done was wrong, I couldn't blame her. No, I would be a hypocrite to blame her, for I had wanted the same thing when the woman in the chestnut coat had given me the tea. If I had known what was in the cup that day, I might have drunk from it, knowing it would have ridden me of the burden of carrying the Dark Lord's child, so that I could be free of the chains that bound me to him. But now... I wasn't so sure if I could. He'd already been put through the pain of losing a child. I couldn't do that to him. After watching him cry like a child, broken on the steps of his house, I couldn't do that to him. Not while I could still hear his cries echoing through my mind. My heart ached for both of them. 

   "Are you even listening to me?" Mother questioned, taking a rather large bite from a crumbling strawberry tart that coated the perimeter of her mouth in a glossy finish. She chewed aggressively, eyeing me down as she waited for an answer. 

   "I apologize," I sighed, trying to push the thoughts out of my head for just a moment, but the thoughts wouldn't budge. She was probably still there, locked in some cold and damp basement in the servant's quarters. Alone. But, how had she helped me? How had she been able to get a letter to me if she was locked in that room? If she could somehow leave that room, had she really stayed for me? To help someone who did not even remember her existence? She had wanted me to discover the truth about her, she had said that in her letter. But now that I had, what was I to do? How could I help her now that she had helped me? 

   "Karina," Mother exclaimed, pulling me from my thoughts once again. "You're in another world."

   "I just have a lot on my mind, Mother," I finished off the last bit of my tea and placed the teacup down onto the table, annoyed with it's rattling. However, I must have been a bit more aggressive with my actions than I'd thought because it fell from the edge of the table. Thankfully, it's fall was cushioned by the soft carpet of Mother's bedroom. With a sigh, I retrieved it from the ground and frowned at the small missing fragment of the gold rim. It was chipped. 

   "We all do, but that's no excuse," Mother finished her tart and moved on to a very chocolatey eclair that she bit into with haste. "Do you have any idea what nonsense the press has been spewing about us, about our family since your attack?"

   Truthfully, I had no idea. During my stay with the Dark Lord, my contact with the outside world had been severed. There was no talk amongst the maids about what was occurring outside the estate, there was no delivery of the Daily Prophet, there wasn't even a visitor aside from my family. Merlin, I barely had a friend in that ungodly place. Except... Mila had been my friend. Although I hadn't seen her there or spoken to her, she'd watched over me, she'd protected me, she had been my only true companion in a household where the next best thing was the Dark Lord. Now, it was my turn to help her. I had to get her out. I had to save her. She had to know she was no longer forgotten and alone. No, not now that she had me.