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"What did you do?" Marina cried as she stormed into the cold office Junior owned while at Hogwarts.

His shaky hands were pushing things under his desk. He didn't even look up at her when she entered the room, which resulted in her banging her fists against the soon empty desk.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?"

"Dark Lady, please-"

She felt anger boil in her veins. "Why did you do it?"

"I have fixed it, Dark Lady, it isn't a problem anymore - he isn't - we don't have to worry-"

"THE BOY SAW IT!" Marina screamed so loud that her voice broke.

"Dark Lady, please," Junior begged, throwing his hands up in defeat. "Would you let me explain?"

Marina's face twisted. Crouch Senior had been found dead in the Forbidden Forest, and she doubted that the murderer could be anyone but the young man in front of her.

"He saw him, Junior," she explained with a thin voice, closing her eyes. Marina and Harry had been taking a walk in the forbidden forest to talk about the third task. However, the lovely evening had been ruined when Harry found the dead body of Crouch Senior hidden behind a tree. The pair had run to get Dumbledore, but by the time they returned to the scene, the body was gone.

"Listen to me," Junior begged, licking the corners of his mouth. His actual hair color of dark brown was beginning to show.

"Junior, drink your polyjuice potion before anyone sees you," she shook her head. He reached for the silver bottle on the inside of Moody's jacket and took a big sip.

"They will never find him," he grunted before coughing and sitting down. "Never."

She plopped down in the chair in front of his desk. She breathed heavily, cringing at the smell of mud from the potion. He looked at her, then, slowly, leaned over his desk with his mouth wide open, and fell into a fit of laughter.

"I made him into a bone!" Junior confessed in-between laughter, "and buried it!"

Her lips started to tremble. She could feel anger in her blood. Junior had broken their agreement - he had crossed the Dark Lord. She banged her fist into his desk once again before standing up, drawing her wand. His laughter found a sudden end, and he leaned back in his chair, looking up at her with a pathetic gaze. Drops of sweat rolled down the side of his face.

What would her father do? Curse him? Torture him? Kill him? She took a moment to gather her thoughts.

"Marina, don't you see? We don't have to worry about him anymore! All the old man cared about was power. The slob was to become Minister!"

"He was your father!"

"He never cared about me." He gritted his teeth together.

"And what are you left with now? Nothing! Your mother is rotting, and now you have killed your father!"

Junior rose up from his seat. He leaned over his desk while looking Marina straight in her dark eyes. He parted his lips and spoke softly, "I live to serve you and your father. Nothing else matters in my life, and I will do anything to make you understand that, Dark Lady."

She bit her tongue and looked at him for a few moments before smiling and shrugging, putting her wand back into her pocket.

"This wasn't a part of the plan," she said, her voice steady.

He pointed at her. "And neither was you killing a Durmstrang student! Yet, I had to hide the body, and help Kararoff convince his students that Isak had traveled home and stayed there after the Yule Ball!"

"And Diggory?" she gulped.

"Thinks he showed you the clue to the Golden Egg." He hid his face in his hands. "Next time, you come to me for clues - do not search for help in students."

Marina carefully opened the door, walking out. Junior watched her with an eyebrow shot up towards the ceiling.  She walked down the dark hallway, thinking that she had to be careful not to be seen by any Prefects who would punish her for roaming outside her Common Room so late at night.

Outside the door to the Slytherin house stood two nervous Gryffindors, looking in each of their direction of any teachers approaching.

"Potter, Granger. What have I done to deserve your company?" she said, very sweetly.

"We wanted to see how you were doing," Harry answered, "after... you know..." Marina crossed her arms and pouted her lips. The two surely wanted something else than hugging her goodnight. "We saw you walk into Moody's office."

"Yeah, I just needed some help to get rid of the effects of the transfiguration from earlier," Marina lied, and watched Hermione knit her eyebrows together.

"How did you do it?" the bushy-haired girl asked.

Marina leaned her head against the wall and smiled, "I used a transfiguration spell, of course."

"But, you can't use a transfiguration spell to transform into a mermaid."

"What do you mean?"

"One has to be born with mermaid genes, it has to run in your family."

Marina felt a pang in her stomach. The Dark Lord had told Junior that anyone could do a mermaid spell as long as they were strong enough...

"You cannot transform into a mermaid without mermaid blood in your veins."

The young Black was certain that the Dark Lord, who was a half-blood, didn't have any mermaid genes in him, and neither did her mother. If mermaid genes were running in the pureblooded Black family, everyone would have known.

"Goodnight, Granger," Marina quickly ended the conversation. Harry, who had only stared at the floor for the whole time, waved an awkward goodbye to her before she pranced away.

"Can you ask Sirius?" Hermione asked Harry softly when she thought Marina had gone inside the Common Room.

"I'll write to him," Potter said, snapping out of his deep thoughts.

Pansy was sitting in the middle of the Slytherin girls' dorm room when Marina entered it, and was reading an article from Witchy Weekly written by Rita Skeeter loudly.

"Hermione Granger, who went to the ball with the Bulgarian flirt Viktor Krum, has now been spotted in the arms of the famous Harry Potter. A source inside Hogwarts has reported that although the young witch is to visit the Bulgarian over the summer, she is also toying Potter's famous heart."

It didn't take long until the girls of the Slytherin house broke into a fit of laughter. Rita's article was the highlight of their week, especially because she spoke good of Marina but horrible about her fellow champions.

"How did she get this information? She isn't allowed to step a foot inside the castle!" Daphne Greengrass asked, to which Pansy only batted her eyelashes. Marina's jaw dropped as Daphne cried: "was it you, Pans?"

Pansy responded with a sweet smile. She leaned back in her bed before giggling loud. "Rita's the most amazing woman I have met. You know, she says I would be a great journalist."

The girls were getting ready to go to bed, some changing into their pajamas, some brushing their hair. Marina was about to do the same, just as the thought of her little friend crossed her mind. Within seconds, she had run out of the Slytherin Common Room again. By now, Granger and Potter were out of sight. She walked straight to the second floor where the girls' lavatory could be found.

"Looking for something?" a high-pitched voice behind her suddenly spoke, and Marina jumped.

"Not anything you should care about, Myrtle."

"Oh well," the ghost of Myrtle Warren huffed while flying closer to Marina, who had turned her back to her. Not many used the second-floor lavatory because of Myrtle; she was known to moan and cry a lot. "Guess who visited me the other day?"

"Who?"

"Your boyfriend!" Myrtle revealed happily. "He was taking a bath with the golden egg. I cared to join him."

"That is... good Myrtle, fantastic," Marina spoke distantly, now on her knees before the snake-engraved sink tap in the middle of the room. "Don't you have something else to do right now?"

"You don't want me here!" Myrtle moaned, desperately searching for pity. "Just like the others! Who would like me, Moaning Myrtle?"

When Marina didn't respond, Myrtle angrily flew into to a bathroom stall and disappeared. Marina rolled her eyes before she carefully parted her lips and began to whisper in Parseltongue. The sink in front of her split into several pieces so that Marina could slide the slide down to the Chamber of Secrets. The first time opening the chamber, she had screamed loudly when sliding the slide, but by now she had grown tired of it.

She landed on bones of dead animals before walking down the dark corridor in front of her, feeling the cool air of the chamber hit her skin. "Open up," she spoke in Parseltongue to the engraved snakes that guarded the chamber, the dark features on her face only increasing.

The room was quiet. One could only hear drops of water dripping down from the roof. Marina loved the chamber. It had been her favorite room in Hogwarts during her second year, but after Harry had killed the basilisk, it had been occupied by many teachers and wizards from the ministry for years, and so Marina had been forced to find another quiet place for communicating with her father.

Upon arrival, the thick snake slithered its way to Marina's feet. She had been hiding the snake she had received as a Christmas present from her father successfully for two months.

"Nagini," she hissed. It turned its head at her words. "That's your name. I know that now."

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