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Splitting Souls	By : N2vivaria Category: HP Canon Characters paired with Original Characters > Het - Male/Female Views: 1367 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Obviously I do not own Harry Potter or any of the characters from the story. I do not make money off this fanfiction.

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
-NOTE: CHAPTER NOW COMPLETE- reviews would be appreciated! All I have to go on so far are two low ratings so if anyone would like to point out any major plot holes or grammatical errors or character flaws that would be a big help >_<

Sia's anger threatened to roll out of her as hot tears but she cleared her mind enough to regain control. Instead she fixed her glare on the bemused demon before her. She was sitting on the bed, all it's comforts lost on her at the moment, while Snake Face stood too close, looking too pleased. He had gone from man handling her face to gently caressing that damn necklace again. She didn't know how she felt about the change in esthetics. When it looked dark and menacing it had felt like a collar, clearly displaying that she belonged to its maker. Now that it appeared naturally alongside her horcruxes, as if it were just another piece of her…well that almost felt more disturbing. She could not accept this confinement…or could she?

Voldemort noticed with interest that Sia had started puzzling over something. She was eyeing him quizzically and he wasn't sure if this development would be good or bad. She had stopped fighting his unwelcome touch, which was somewhat disappointing because he loved dominating others and hated to see the game end so quick, but this in no way indicated that she would submit to him.

"What makes you so smug?" She asked, catching him off guard. No, she clearly hadn't learned her place. The question was laced with suspicion and…did he detect a hint of fear? He answered without hesitation, deciding that the truth would serve him best now.

"I'm merely pleased at having found someone so young who has made multiple horcruxes. Not only have you revived a lost dark art but you've found such interesting and practical uses for it." He couldn't help but gleam when she looked as if she'd been slapped. Getting caught with horcruxes had clearly caused her enough trouble. Her expression became more pensive but before he could wonder too long about it she moved on to her next question.

"For a Dark Lord renowned for seeking immortality, you don't look half as excited as I thought you'd be upon discovering horcruxes," she noticed his smile widen and grumbled, "Not that you don't look overly pleased with yourself." She was silenced by his hand curling around her neck and his face setting in a blank expression. His grip was tight, uncomfortably tight, but not crushing yet.

"Though I am feeling satiated enough to answer your questions, you will watch what you say servant." He coldly ordered but then continued in a more business like tone, "As you seem to have guessed, I am already familiar with the practice of soul splitting."

Sia visibly relaxed, despite the still harsh grip he had on her neck. Her biggest fear up till this point had been that she'd grant the Dark Lord the immortality he so voraciously craved, which would have made her the second most hated person in the world. If he already had the knowledge though…well didn't that mean she was basically off the hook?

"So you don't need me to help you become immortal?" She finalized. Voldemort shook his head to confirm. While she was finally able to shake the guilt that she might betray the world, her demeanor began to expose a new bout of trepidation. "Then you don't actually need me for anything…" she trailed off, possibly speaking more to herself than him but the Dark Lord would not accept any argument for her release so he was quick to interrupt.

"Your use of soul splitting is unlike anything I've ever seen before. Usually horcruxes serve to simply save a piece of you to prevent yourself from ever dying completely but clearly your horcruxes are imbued with magic and kept with you to make you stronger. I will learn your secrets. You will not be allowed to leave." Without much hesitation, and lacking any forethought she blurted out her next question.

"So do I get to stay here?" Her expression bordered on worry.

Voldemort was speechless. It didn't happen often, hell, he couldn't remember the last time he'd been shocked into unresponsive silence. Things had suddenly gone in a completely different direction than he was expecting. Was this little witch completely crazy? He'd just told her she wasn't allowed to leave, she was his prisoner, and she was worried that he was throwing her out? It came with a shock that he discovered his mouth had been opening and closing soundlessly while he had been failing to form a reply. This witch had reduced him to gaping like a fish! With reinvigorated fury he set out to correct whatever misunderstanding she'd had about her situation.

"YOU ARE MY PRISONER, OF COURSE YOU'RE STAYING HERE!" he held back the venom in his voice before continuing, "I may choose to change the location of your imprisonment, but you will be kept captive," he scrambled for words watching the relief set in on her face. This was not right, she was not understanding something. His grip tightened around her throat and she quickly switched back to fear. That was better, now things were as they should be and he could cope enough to proceed. "You will lower your occlumency, I need to see what you're thinking."

At first his demand scared her more than her restricted airway; Sia was not accustomed to so much sharing in one lifetime, yet alone in one day. The tightening grip around her windpipe and the realization that he had already discovered her most incriminating secret helped convince her to comply though. One quick glance into her terrified eyes and he was inside.

He didn't have to look far to find the memory of the conversation they'd just had, and from there he simply followed her relief upon hearing that she would be staying captive to her underlying fear. 'Ah, would you look at that? It's the ministry.' She could feel him smirk inside her mind. The very ministry he was fighting against had chased her right into his arms, which would make her easy to sway.

She needed a place to hide, somewhere the ministry couldn't find her. Without the ability to apparate, she was a sitting duck anytime she wanted to practice her magic. They could track illegal magic and appear wherever she was to apprehend her. When the destruction of her wand had only resulted in a heightened aptitude for wandless magic, the decision was made that she'd be permanently stripped of her magic. He could feel her panic at learning that they meant to turn her into a squib. He could almost sympathize.

The Dark Lord had never been susceptible to such a predicament, he had been extremely sneaky growing up to protect his interest in the dark arts, but for a witch of her potential to be reduced to the likes of a muggle was an outrage. She had become powerful enough that she was difficult to apprehend, and even harder to keep hold of. With her ring, she kept a clear enough head to be smart with her wandless magic, hiding just how powerful she was so that they'd underestimate and ultimately lose her. But running wouldn't be an option forever. The ministry had an ever expanding file on her, giving each new round of aurors a better understanding of what exactly they were up against. She found her salvation in Knockturn Alley, where she initiated fights with death eaters to try and prompt her kidnapping.

Voldemort pulled out of her mind and mused at this. He didn't like the idea of anyone other than himself using his death eaters as pawns but she had been both cunning and resourceful to consider hiding in his dungeons. Everyone knew that the ministry would never be able to save you once you were captured by death eaters, and she'd turned their incompetence to her advantage. He was surprised to find a solid, rational answer for her insane reaction to being imprisoned - but here it was, completely satisfying to him. He was incorrigibly amused with her despite himself.

Sia's eyes drifted to the floor. She wasn't evil; she knew she wasn't because it was a baseless, subjective term that held no real meaning but…well her actions were certainly enough to condemn her in the eyes of the wizarding world. Hogwarts and the Ministry definitely represented the good guys while The Dark Lord…well, his name said it all. Now she felt both guilty and afraid; guilty because she was clearly using -if not joining- the bad guys to hide from the good guys, and afraid because Voldemort now knew it. She didn't expect him to take too kindly to being used.

Voldemort studied his new toy like some long anticipated Christmas present. The scrawny little mystery just became more interesting the more he found out about her, each answer just provoking more questions. So it was with great displeasure that he noticed the sheen of sweat over all of her exposed skin, her pupils dilating, and her chest heaving. These were stress symptoms of legilimency, which meant that her mind wouldn't withstand any more intrusions today. She was clearly putting up a brave front though, trying desperately to hide her increasing vulnerability. She handled mental agony and psychotic breaks well, and that was something worth remembering for later. For now though, he thought his best plan of action would be to stay out of her mind and see to her stomach.

To her clear embarrassment, it had started grumbling and it occurred to him that she obviously hadn't eaten since they met just over 24 hours ago. Actually it had probably been even longer since her last meal when he considered that Rodolphus most likely wasn't wasting much food, if any, on prisoners. He could summon a house elf to fetch her food but he needed her to become more cooperative for future interrogations and being her source of sustenance could prove invaluable for brainwashing. Even muggles know that you tame wild animals by feeding them.

Sia focused hard on the Dark Lord's chest. She was trying to stay conscious, keep herself afloat in the churning sea of her frazzled mind, but looking to the floor would indicate weakness and if she made eye contact then he would probably see her rising panic. No, his chest would have to be her anchor, an acceptable middle ground to stare at while she collected her thoughts. This is why she was startled when he suddenly whipped around and approached the wall beside the nightstand.

She floundered to find her focus but was brought to attention when the wall dissolved into a door before him and he indicated for her to follow with a wave of his hand, never turning to catch her momentary distress. She scrambled off the bed to follow, not knowing how long the door might stick around in his absence, but mindful of what manner of horrors he might be leading her to. A rustic, cozy kitchen was not on that list. That was what the short hallway running past her bedroom opened up to, complete with a screened in porch revealing breathtaking forest surroundings. If Sia didn't know any better, she would even say it looked tropical but there weren't any jungles in the U.K.…oh dear. Any inquires she was about to make into their location died in her throat when she watched Voldemort open up a drawer and pull out a rather large knife.

Being the most wanted dark wizard in Europe and having an obsession with immortality had made Voldemort paranoid about the possibility of having his food poisoned. He had also lived a very independent, self-sufficient life prior to coming to power so it shouldn't be so surprising that he preferred to cook his own food. It obviously shocked Sia though, so he tried to suppress a snicker when her jaw dropped and her eyes bugged out as he began summoning ingredients and utensils from around the room, bringing them together into a little circus on the counter. Olive oil poured into a saucepan as it floated down overtop a small flame on the stovetop while the Dark Lord himself began to chop onions over a chopping board that appeared seemingly from nowhere. As he moved on to mincing garlic, the chopped onions found their own way to the saucepan where they were joined by what Sia could only assume were bay leaves and sugar. She couldn't tell you when it had happened, but somewhere in her stunned fascination, she'd sat down at the table to watch the Dark Chef wordlessly order the can opener to free the beef stock which, like everything else, found its own way to the saucepan that had started emitting the delightful aroma of caramelized onions which was greatly preferable to their formerly tear inducing sting. When the last of the ingredients, a particularly disobedient pinch of dry thyme, dropped into the pan he sauntered over and covered it with the lid. With the same infuriatingly elegant stride he joined her at the table and sat down. It was a small, round and uncomfortably intimate wooden table. It fit the house perfectly, but not her company. The silence was also uncomfortable but it didn't irk her nearly as much as his smug appearance from having showed off his effortless control over everything he'd been summoning and levitating. Hmmm, now if only she could kill two birds with one stone…

"We're not in Britain anymore, are we?" a question that successfully broke the silence and wiped that smirk off his face. Voldemort turned and looked out into the chokingly humid overgrown jungle, knowing it must be what had given him away. He recovered quickly though, seeing the clear advantage to letting her have that little piece of knowledge as it showed his power over her situation.

"Obviously we are not. Malfoy has many bunkers outside the U.K., outside the reach of the ministry's aurors," he added, remembering that she had chosen imprisonment over being a squib. There was another awkward silence as each waited for the other to say something. When he purposefully didn't elaborate on their location, Sia rolled her eyes and huffed, annoyed that he clearly intended to withhold any information about their whereabouts that could aid her should she escape. Before she could press any further, they were interrupted by the buzzing of a timer.

"Would you like cheese and toast with your soup?" he asked while removing the bay leaves from the near-finished dish, closing the door on their previous subject. Sia would have objected to the change in topic were she not starving and watching the French onion soup be poured into 2 bowls while Swiss Gruyere shavings and cubed toast danced about midair waiting for her answer. She nodded hungrily, afraid to open her mouth in reply due to the risk of drooling now that she found herself salivating uncontrollably. Of course that brought back his stupid smirk from earlier but she missed it because in lieu of broiling, the Dark Lord preferred to conjure fiend fire over their floating dishes. Once his flaming snake had spent enough time writhing above the now golden brown cheese, it dissipated and her bowl began floating closer, complete with toppings, and in that moment nothing else truly mattered to her.

He-Who-Could-Sauté conjured up some spoons and they enjoyed a nice dinner together silently. He hadn't wanted to upset her neglected stomach with anything too extravagant and the pauper's dish seemed to be doing just the trick. Her skin was gaining a healthy glow and her eyes were perking back into alert green orbs. He found himself staring at them again, curious about their color change. They'd been the same liquid gold as Nagini's when they first met, but now that she had her fox ring back they had turned such a dark green hazel. The color wasn't flat and opaque like before, but layered, and seemingly shrouding her mind from his prying eyes. When she noticed his attention she stopped eating and stared back, no more animosity to her features, just a curious expression on her face. That was progress at least.

"Why have your eyes changed color," he asked in his typical whisper. It was deceptive really, because his voice was actually quite deep but he always spoke so lightly that the exact harmonics of his voice were difficult to discern. She found this quirk of his to be increasingly off-putting. Well if he was going to be creepy, then she was going to be difficult, so in return she offered only this:

"Why are your eyes red?" She could see irritation corrupting his features but she merely smiled and waited. She had answered his question fully, now he just needed to figure it out for himself.

Salazar help him, he was going to hex this infuriating witch into next week. After he'd been so kind to her (kind by his standards) she was refusing to answer his question by changing the topic. And why would she even ask that? She of all people must know that his eyes were red and his other features inhuman because of the hor…crux…es…oohhhh.

Sia noticed that the Dark Lord's red eyes were gleaming with interest now, so he must have understood her hint. He quickly leaned across the table, closing the space between them, to get a closer look at her. His eyes went back and forth between her fox ring and her eyes but then they began to fall on her other horcruxes.

"So when they're with you, you aren't inhuman," he murmured more to himself then to her, "but that would indicate a level of interaction between you and your soul fragments that's unheard of." His excitement was clearly growing and he flashed her a bright-eyed smile. She didn't know it of course but on his old face, this had always been a favor winning smile used on teachers and peers who were oblivious to his true nature. Unfortunately for them both, on his new face it was just scary. Sia took some pride though in being able to make the Dark Lord look like a kid in a candy shop, if only she weren't the figurative candy.

Voldemort studied Sia intensely and came to the conclusion that, other than her enticing almond-shaped eyes, her face was completely plain looking. Her figure was slight but otherwise standard of a fit adolescent, and in no way monstrous. Someone who had made 3 horcruxes should have looked at least somewhat…disfigured for lack of a better word, since the creation of horcruxes wasn't a well studied art and the effects of having multiple was completely unknown before himself, but it should show! It had taken glamours to hide his changes throughout school and during his rise to power but he doubted that she was under one now. He wondered what she would transform into if she removed all 3 horcruxes…

Voldemort's little daydream had given Sia time to remember her situation and worry about what he would do next. She didn't want the rest of her life to be spent locked away in that bedroom, her solitude only interrupted by his inquisitions. She rubbed her fox ring for comfort, willing her rising panic to subside. She needed a plan.

The Dark Lord rose from the table, pleased with the information he had gathered so far and wanting to look into the ministry's records on Sia, he decided it was time to leave. He walked back toward the hallway intending her to follow but he stopped when he noticed her lightly chewing on her lower lip. It was abundantly clear that she knew he intended to put her back into her room and she might be terrified enough by that to try and fight him again. He let out a tired sigh.

"It'd be in your best interest to let this day end on a positive note rather than forcing my hand here Sia." Realizing he'd seen her worrying made Sia react defensively, so she stood and backed away from him with a determined glare.

He didn't want this fight, it would undo the work he'd accomplished with her so far. Perhaps some negotiating was in order.

"This house was never designed to hold captives, only your room is suitable for keeping you properly confined. It has not escaped my attention that you've spent your whole life hiding, getting captured and then subsequently squirming loose. When I'm here to watch you, you'll be allowed out since we both know you've never mastered apparation but I can't risk you finding a broom and flying away or otherwise escaping when no one is here to stop you." She smirked at the mention of her skills but her features drooped a little, the determination still there but more resigned now. She knew she would lose but she was going to fight him anyway, unable to give up this new found freedom without even trying.

Still reluctant to destroy the civility between them, he thought of another route. He could win her favor and tie her to him further if he played his cards right. "What would you trade for your freedom?"

That question clearly caught her off guard. Did she have anything to trade? But he already had something in mind.

"You'll be free to roam the house and even leave it, going as far as your feet can carry you, if you allow me to magically shackle you." At first she was furious, it sounded like the ministry's intentions to turn her into a squib, but he quickly transfigured their dinnerware into worn gold anklets and held them out for her to feel. She inspected their magic and her stomach turned in knots. The shackles would allow her to leave the house on foot as he had suggested but they would thwart any magical escape, so no portkeys, floo or side-long apparition without him would work. She suspected that the house must be in the middle of nowhere for him to not even fear the possibility of her running away muggle style but even if she did, he would always be able to follow the magic to her. It played off her necklace, without which such a strong and specific confinement and locating spell wouldn't have been possible. He had essentially conjured up and offered her a leash to match her collar.

Voldemort smiled at her inner turmoil. She couldn't escape from one the Malfoy's specially designed prisoner rooms without being allowed out, and going from occupying a single room to an entire house and the surrounding jungle would provide an obvious upgrade to her living quarters so the pros were pretty staggering. This meant that her reluctance came from the fact that she understood exactly what she'd be trading if she accepted his deal. She could get a false sense of freedom if she gave up any real chance she ever had of escaping. He was afraid she'd turn it down, considering she was no stranger to confinement and her room here at the bunker was more comfortable than anything she'd submitted to in the dungeons, but he remembered how she reacted when she thought she wasn't needed. She wanted to stay, to hide from the ministry; she was just tired of going from one cage to another. He needed to remind her of that.

"You like it here, don't you? You could wake up in your own room every morning instead of camping in a new alley every night, prepare food from your own kitchen instead of scrabbling to find galleons for food and enjoy the peace of this jungle rather than submit to the noisy world of wizards that you despise so much," not that he'd let her go back to that life even if she chose it, but the point was that she needed to remember how unhappy she'd been.

He'd seen it in her memories, her misanthropy clouding her decisions. She had always been a loner, disregarding people's opinions for the worthless drivel that it was, but it had been her greatest mistake to think that she was on the outside, looking in, like some impartial observer on the world. Growing up she could never decide what to do next, how to move forward, in a world that rejected the way she wielded magic. Tom could understand that, it was why he had become Lord Voldemort. If the ministry meant to control the way he performed magic then he would control the ministry, but she never had any ambitions to bend the world to her will. She just wanted the freedom to practice magic her way, but she preferred avoidance to confrontation. She could only be free once he was in control. He explained to her as much, delighted to see her try to find another way out to no avail. As entertaining as it was to confuse her with mind games, his time was growing thin.

Out of the blue he reached out and grabbed her arm, apparating them both to her room and, to her greatest distress, removing the door before placing the anklets on her nightstand…but when had she started thinking of it as hers? His damn words were spinning around in her mind like an imperious, corrupting her judgment. He looked around her quaint little prison while she buckled at the knees and fell back on her bed. She managed to stay sitting up but she was still reeling from their sudden flight from the kitchen through the hallway. He of course managed to travel with grace but she hadn't been expecting it and might never get used to the way death eaters sometimes turned into to something like a cross between ink and smoke and poured through the air, rather than disappearing from their location and instantly reappearing at their destination as in normal apparition.

"You'll have plenty of time to decide which life to choose in here I suppose," the Dark Lord mumbled with feigned disinterest before disapparating on the spot.

Having slept, showered and eaten already, Sia was at a loss as to what to do next. They'd passed a sitting room full of books in the hallway during their walk to the kitchen but she couldn't get there now and didn't see any books in her room. She longed for a window, something through which she could watch the living jungle surrounding her. There was no way the Dark Lord could have known how much she would appreciate these surroundings when he brought her here, nor would he have likely cared at the time, but now it was probably his greatest ally in coaxing her to escape her confinement by donning the anklets. She refused to be so easily manipulated though. What she needed now was a distraction, something to do to take her mind off things, just to clear her head.

She loved creating useful trinkets, and that would certainly require all of her attention…but what to create? She considered her surroundings, sitting here all alone when there was a jungle just teaming with life outside these walls. So many things to see once she got out of here (regardless of which method she chose for leaving), surely a hike would be in order. She started out simple, duplicating some pillows and transfiguring the spares into shoes but she didn't put them on because she didn't need them yet. Once she got outside she would want nothing more than to immerse herself in the humid green world she had admired from the kitchen, so she was hit by a sudden muse and set to work.

She searched the room for suitable items to transmute and settled for paperclips that she found in one of the drawers of her nightstand. Transfiguring two of them into small worn gold studs and the third into a slightly larger one, a bar capped by a small ball on either end, was the easy part. She began imbuing them with magic, concentrating hard on what she needed them to do and feeling her way through spell creation in a manner impossible to most witches and wizards. Rather than focusing on spoken invocations, she used the innate ability seen in underage wizards to harness magic through intent alone. Her bracelet floating softly around her arm, she began the time-consuming and tricky task of weaving the magic into the studs.

Armed with a first name, Voldemort's ministry mole had succeeded in digging up some of Sia's file, though the part which detailed her offenses was classified only to the unspeakables which Voldemort hadn't infiltrated since his rebirth. He assumed it was due to her involvement with horcruxes, which were of the darkest arts and kept from being public knowledge. He did, however, learn of her muggle family and her short school record. It actually cited extensive use of underage magic…at age 8? She hadn't been charged for it since she hadn't received a wand yet and could hardly be held accountable for her actions but to have such extensive use and control at such a young age was astounding, reminding Voldemort of himself a little.

This of course caused the ministry to get involved and alert her parents, sooner than most muggles, to the extraordinary abilities of their child. When his servant inquired as to whether he should capture her parents, Voldemort declined. She hadn't obliviated them from her mind to protect them, but herself. They were nothing more than strangers with similar facial features to her now, making them useless as leverage against her. Of course, should that ever change, he'd know where to find them, so he rewarded and dismissed his death eater for a job well done. He moved onto some business that Malfoy needed assistance with and tried for at least a little while to put this new witch out of his mind.

Voldemort silently poured into Sia's room 8 hours after he had left it, realizing that she would need to be fed again. The only other pet he'd ever had was Nagini and not only did she usually feed herself, but she ate a lot less often than warm-blooded humans. He could see where this might get time consuming if he could not convince the girl to adorn the shackles which, like her necklace, only worked when taken willingly.

He was surprised to find that she hadn't even noticed his entrance, as she was huddled over on the bed with what appeared to be a miniature barbell in her hand, clearly performing some sort of spell casting but doing so without speaking. He conjured up a chair for his nice vantage point and settled down, unfurling his magic as stealthily as he could to try and get a feel for what she was doing without waking her from this trance.

As tendrils of his magic coiled around her own, he was instantly captivated by what was taking place. Feeling her create charms, rather than using known spells like most wizards, would have been interesting enough but the skill and grace she applied to forcing those magical qualities into a physical object was akin to watching someone knit or crochet. He had clearly come in on the end of her project and was delighted to bear witness to all of her charms being brought together into the final product which felt like a small implosion in the room.

He drew back his magic as she came back into awareness, watching her eyes flicker around the room before finally settling on him. Her reaction was not what he could have expected.

"You're back!" she exclaimed, hopping off the bed and trotting over to him like a child excited to see a friend. "Does this place have any calming drought?" she asked as she veered passed him at the last minute and stood beside the nightstand expectantly. Without waiting for her to ask, he summoned the door and followed her out into the hallway, where she waited for him to lead. He stalked out past her, unsure of whether or not he'd like where this was headed, but took her opposite the path they'd taken to the kitchen. The hallway terminated in a door that opened to a modest potions lab, from which he summoned the calming draught she'd asked for and handed it to her, too curious at this point to deny her request.

She summoned a needle from another drawer and cast a scouring charm on it, suddenly looking less excited, more queasy. She handed him the needle though while downing the calming drought. A pillow floated past the Dark Lord's head that she must have summoned from her room and he stared at her in shock as she climbed up onto the potions table and laid down.

"You're j-just in time to p-pierce my ears," she stuttered, trying and failing to feign the excitement she'd had earlier. Voldemort tried to make sense of the request as she held out 3 studs, two clearly earrings whereas the bar she'd been working on when he entered her room looked curiously different.

Sia had never understood the desire shared by muggles and wizards alike to skewer themselves holes so that they could be adorned like Christmas trees; it was one of the many puzzling behaviors that she had written off as just another ill-bred meme. She however, had a purpose for joining her trinkets to her in such a way. They needed to sufficiently be a part of her for their charms to extend to herself.

Problem is, Sia was terrified of needles. Not petrified mind you, as that would imply that she lost motor function in their presence, which was far from the truth. Fight or flight mode kicked in with a vengeance anytime needles were near, which is why she required both the calming drought and the assistance of likely the only person with the power to hold her down. And he was now staring at her dumbfounded.

It's not like Voldemort wasn't familiar with the concept of such body modifications, but he'd certainly never been asked to perform one. He'd always thought the idea of body jewelry to be a stupid fad for the masses, but assumed that her charmed studs must be intended to act on her in the same way that his dark mark was no mere tattoo for his death eaters. He placed the two studs and the barbell into his robe pocket while he fiddled around with the needle she'd given him.

The calming draught was kicking in as the Dark Lord approached her from the side, twirling the needle between his fingers as if debating whether to pierce her ears or plunge it in her eyes…at least, that's what she would have thought if she weren't feeling so warm and contented. She saw the way his long spindly fingers played with the needle and it only reassured her that he had a sure and steady hand.

Again, Voldemort's curiosity won out so he sat down at the table beside her head and caressed her lobe between his finger and thumb, where he assumed she would want the stud.

Sia felt his fingers on the side of her face and, in her drug induced calm, aberrantly thought only of how cool they were and how gentle his touch felt. She summoned the cork from her empty drought bottle and held it beneath her ear so that he'd have something to push into. Somewhere, far back in the recesses of her mind, this spiked pure panic but she wasn't aware of that now that things were no nice, so peaceful, so

"OUCH!" there it was, the panic, unleashed from the haze of the calming drought when Voldemort finally decided to prick her ear. He held the needle in with one hand and used the other to push down on her sternum when she tried to sit up to flee. He incanted a spell she didn't recognize and suddenly her stud was in, having replaced the needle in her ear. He fished the needle out of his robe pocket, where it had replaced the stud, and levitated the cork to her other ear so he could repeat the procedure.

Unfortunately, the hand that he liberated by taking the cork was now swinging at him unreluctantly. He still couldn't petrify her while her beetle ring maintained that blasted shield, but he saw his opportunity to remove it while she was distractedly panicked about the needle and groggy from the calming drought.

Upon wrenching it from her finger, her body began to distort. He backed off her just in time to take in the sight of her ears growing long and pointed like an elf's, and her femurs shortened while her metatarsals extended. It was comparable to the transformation of a werewolf, though she didn't specifically look like a dog, just something inhuman.

"Petrificus totalus!" he cast, ceasing her sudden rampage which shouldn't have occurred under the influence of calming drought. "I'm merely going to pierce your other ear, just as you requested of me, before releasing you." He tried to coax her with his voice, because he was now dying to know what she'd charmed the studs with that had been worth going through this for.

It took no time at all with her frozen and after the deed was done, he sat down on the table behind her. She'd be furious with him for sure, but he needed directions so he reached under her shoulders and lifted up her torso so that he could bring her stiff arms behind her back. He used a sticking jinx to lock her wrists together and propped her up against his chest before casting Rennervate to unpetrify her. She slumped against him before stiffening and sitting up. She cast a dirty glare back at him but he simply shrugged and got up from the table.

"How was I to know any better than you that the calming drought wouldn't work? I suspect it has more to do with your…condition, rather than any fault on my potions master." His words knocked the indignance from her features. She clearly agreed with his analysis of what had happened but she was still angry from having been so scared so she simply reminded him of another reason she could hate him.

"Give me back my ring," she practically growled. Actually, he wasn't so sure he hadn't seen her flash some canines during that command. He wasn't angered by her unruliness though, because he knew enough about her animalistic demeanor now to know that she was just putting up a front to mask her fear.

"You can have it back once we're done, but obviously my method of subduing you is more effective and as I recall, we have one left," he said as he pulled the barbell out of his pocket, "so where would you like this to go?"

Sia blanched. He was right, she'd need to be petrified for this next one.

"Th-that's a-a t-tongue ring," she barely managed to sputter. She didn't want to be frozen in place, helpless to defend herself and fully conscious for this one but it needed to be done. She hated being so wimpy but it was the concept of having her tongue stabbed through that scared her more than the pain, she would gladly take a cruciatus over this.

Ok, now he was getting slightly worried. The benefits that these piercings would provide her must be considerable if she, with her clear phobia of piercings, was resigning herself to having her tongue skewered. In all likelihood they would be used as weapons against him or implements for escape. He cursed himself for not having thought of this sooner and the muggle saying 'curiosity killed the cat' briefly flashed through his mind.

"Imperio."

Sia's fear and hate subsided all of a sudden, and the most wonderful sensation of peace overcame her. It was kind of like the calming draught, except that she was inexplicably more aware of the Dark Lord who was eyeing her wearily now. It was as if her very existence hinged on his every word…so why wasn't he speaking up? She couldn't obey him until he let her know what he wanted. She whimpered a little at his hesitation, bringing him back into focus.

Voldemort appreciated the puppy-dog look in her eyes, so eager to please. "Tell me Sia," he ordered, "what do your piercings do?"

She baulked. She wanted to tell him, it was on the tip of her tongue…but at the same time…she didn't…she really didn't want to tell him. It was a secret! She remembered now, it was a last ditch attempt to escape.

To her horror she realized that she had said all of this aloud, it just fell out of her mouth as it came to her mind like word vomit.

He was displeased with his lack of control. The Dark Lord's imperius curse was strong enough to turn most any wizard into putty but she was showing the same inexplicable resistance that she'd had for Severus's drought.

Suddenly he remembered her fox ring and groaned. How could it have taken him so long to figure out something so simple, that ring always got in his way!

He made as if to remove it but reconsidered when he saw the fierce understanding in her eyes; she wasn't giving up another ring and he could still remember what a handful she'd been without it the last time. In theory, being without two of her horcruxes would make her weak…or it might just drive her mad enough to whip out another surprise ability that could destroy them both. Unwillingly to face the latter, he came up with a new plan.

"I'm not going to help you arm yourself against me," he admonished her like a child, "so if you want this tongue ring back at all, you need to tell me what it does." Had she been right in her mind then his condescending tone would have made her hurl, but he was familiar with dealing with those under the imperius curse and they simply understood orders better when spoken to this way.

Sia moaned with her last bit of resistance while stalling, as she'd been about to spill her entire half-baked plan to him. "It will…grant me…the gift…of…oh TONGUES!" she spat out furiously, the words fighting their way from her mouth. "I'll need it to speak with the…locals if I want to…to get help to…escape," she sighed, defeated.

So that was it? He found the plan harmless enough considering there were no locals in this neck of the woods, Malfoy had seen to that. He smiled at the memory. Malfoy always preferred his bunkers be secluded but that didn't mean that he always chose secluded areas in which to set up shop.

Her compliance, no matter how unwilling, could be rewarded now so he cast another spell, mumbling incantations that she'd never heard before, and suddenly her mind was swimming. She was like a fish, having absolutely no sense of time or any concern for what was going on around her. It was a high existence in which everything felt right and she perceived nothing.

As suddenly as it had started, it was over. She was sitting on the potions table, her tongue throbbing, while the Dark Lord placed some sinister looking clamps down on the table with a HUGE needle that instantly made her light-headed.

Seeing that she was about to faint, Voldemort rushed to her side and propped her up. He slipped her beetle ring back on her finger and released the sticking charm on her wrists as he summoned an invigoration drought. Her features became human again and she greedily drank the potion that counteracted 8 hours of charms and 1 hour of panic.

"Thank you for…" Sia trailed off, incapable of thanking him for making her vulnerable and controlling her, even though it was necessary in order for him to comply with her request.

The dark Lord was feeling merciful enough to accept such insufficient thanks mainly because he was eager to see the look on her face when she realized that it had all been for naught, that there was no one out there to help her.

She suddenly danced out of the room, through the hallway, out into the kitchen to look through the screen porch into the jungle with a certain dark lord right on her heels. To her disappointment, it was darkening quickly but her joy rebounded when Voldemort made a creaky-springed screen door appear. She leapt out the door, into the rainforest without a second thought.

After a two minute sprint almost ended in a twisted ankle, she remembered to summon her shoes and ran off again. The freedom was intoxicating, and stretching her legs after such a long imprisonment was bliss.

As her adrenaline wore off and her gate began to slow, she heard the tiniest voice coming from the ground on her right.

'don't step on me, don't step on me, don't step on me' the mantra floated up to her 'just go on about your business and pay me no mind'

She stopped and searched around to the creature's great dismay until she finally located it. Actually she was surprised she hadn't found it sooner because it was the biggest walking stick she'd ever seen in her life. It boasted a nasty array of spines over its impressive 6" length.

'damn it sees me, it's looking right at me, I must moooooooove' it hissed as it began to slowly sway back and forth. The system was low and sneaky, two steps forward and one step back to look like something swaying in the breeze.

Sia tried to suppress a snicker at this adorable attempt to flee, it would only take one step from her to catch up to a 6 minute flight on his part. Clearly her earrings were working properly, interpreting all languages for her, including the inhuman. She was still proud of herself for succeeding in hiding that from the Dark Lord, covering at the last minute with the term 'locals' which wasn't a lie-the native animals were inarguably locals.

'I'm not going to eat you' she said, mimicking his language using her new tongue piercing. The bug stopped short and reoriented himself presumably to see her better.

'what does it say? how come it speaks?' and he suddenly began to crawl forward. Sia reached out her hand to him and watched with wonder as his chocolate brown legs bent at odd angles while he pulled himself up into her open palm.

He was so cute that she didn't notice the cloud of inky smoke come billowing up behind her, solidifying into the Dark Lord, displeased with what he had misinterpreted as an escape attempt. He was forced to acknowledge his mistake when he found her coddling a rather large insect, escapees simply didn't do that.

It was endearing of her really, innocently whispering sweet nothings to a harmless and misunderstood bug. She suddenly hopped up and began shrieking in excitement over a new find. She placed the walking stick on her head and began creeping forward into the bushes.

Mid-conversation with her new insect friend, Sia spotted something inky black slipping across the forest floor. In her excitement she almost dropped Gollum, as she had come to fondly think of the bug. After instructing him to get a good grip on her hair, she hurriedly sought to cut off her potential new friend's escape route.

She was stunned to find a beautiful 6' black snake, and when he turned to face her, hissing all manner of vile threats to ward her off because he'd interpreted her actions as predatory, she noticed the frame of white scales above and below his mouth. In combination with its rainbow sheen, reminiscent of oil, the snake was unmistakable. The white-lipped python was native to New Guinea, not only that but the northern pythons were smaller and brown, which meant she was in southern New Guinea! That meant that the walking stick on her head must be the famous New Guinea giant walking stick, known for the spines on their hind legs that could make any entomologist regret picking one up in haste.

'Back Off Now Or I'll Bite' the D'Albertis' python hissed as it coiled back, preparing to lunge forward. As pleased as Lord Voldemort was with her apparent fondness of snakes, he figured now would be a good time to intervene if he wished to prevent Sia from getting bit. White-lipped pythons weren't venomous, but it wouldn't be good if she learned to fear snakes should he ever decide to introduce his new pet to Nagini. He reached forward and affectionately wrapped a hand around the child's arm just as she began hissing.

'Don't Bite, I Won't Hurt You' Sia said, feeling a hand slip around her arm. She froze up, knowing whose hand it must be and felt him stiffen in turn behind her. Did he realize what she was doing? Oh please dear Merlin no, maybe he would just assume she was idiotically hissing back at the snake to scare it off. Unlikely, considering the harsh grip he now had around her arm.

"You…you're a parselmouth?" he sputtered, confused. No, of course, it was those damn piercings! She hadn't been muttering to that insect earlier, she was really communicating with it! She'd known all along that there were no people around; these were the 'locals' she wanted to talk to. How much information had she gotten already? No, there was no way that a bug had known anything of importance. Animals didn't name their location, so they couldn't tell her where she was.

He was furious, she could see it. Honestly she didn't feel like she'd gotten away with that much but he clearly didn't agree with that assessment.

Lord Voldemort wouldn't tolerate any more surprises. He lashed out the only way he knew how, by grabbing her new bug buddy and starting to squeeze.

"No, don't!" Sia wailed, trying to warn him before the bad situation got worse, "New Guinea's Giant Walking stick has spines…" but not in time. Gollum brought his hind legs together, pinching the Dark Lord's fingers painfully. She was wrong about him being furious before; apparently he had only been mad, now he was furious. His face set in that horrifying blank expression. She realized her mistake too late. There was a moment of silence as they just stared each other down, even Gollum and the snake sensing the tension well enough to keep quiet. Then he attacked.

Give the witch an inch and she'd steal a mile, the Dark Lord thought as he disapparated into smoke and engulfed the bug, the girl and the snake before whisking them back the bunker. They all tumbled into her room, and he quickly pinched the bug's thorax in one hand and the grabbed the python behind the head with the other before Sia could even collect herself up off the floor.

She watched in horror as reputedly the most menacing wizard the world had ever known left her room with Gollum and the beautifully iridescent snake struggling pitifully in his hands. She leapt up off the floor, to the best of her ability, after him but she was still dizzy from the trip and missed the door as it disappeared behind him.

"DON'T YOU DARE!" she bellowed, grabbing the anklets off her nightstand and pulling them over her feet where they resized so that they couldn't be pulled back off. She would worry about that later though, right now she needed to go stop a Dark Lord from being a complete ass.

As soon as she had them on, the anklets brought back the door and she stormed out into the hallway prepared for the worst. She ran into the kitchen but didn't see them there. Then she ran to the potions lab only to find it equally empty. Were they still alive at all? How long could an ordinary snake and a poor little bug survive the wrath of the Dark Lord? She was running back to the kitchen to try and look for them outside when she heard Gollum.

'have to get away, showed it not to try and eat me, time to sneak away now'

She had to backtrack only to be stunned by the scene in the sitting room. Voldemort was reclined on a comfortable looking coach with the white-lipped python draped across the arm rest, stroking its head reassuringly, while Gollum scuttled in the same wind-blown fashion that he always used, across a coffee table, toward the door where she was standing.

Upon seeing her astounded form in the doorway, the Dark Lord quit speaking with the snake and shot her one of those abominable smirks.

"Took you long enough, I'd almost given up hope that you'd ever find us the second time you ran past the door," he teased. "I'd say that giving up every chance you ever had of escaping is fair punishment for keeping secrets from me," Voldemort gloated. He was going to have fun with his new, willing prisoner.

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walking stick - http://www.phasmidsincyberspace.com/EurycanthaCalcarata.html

white-lipped python - http://www.pythoncentral.com/collection/?collection=21

A picture's worth 1000 words so I thought I'd save my breath and add these links to show off the beauty of Sia's new familiars :)
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Splitting Souls