A/N: Promised I'd answer some questions, didn't I? This chapter tells 'where' and 'who.' 'How' and 'why' will be answered in chapters 3 and 4 respectively. So if you're wondering what the heck is going on, don't worry, we're getting there.

Sorry for the long delay in posting. My muse decided to switch fandoms (oh hai Labyrinth) within maybe a week of posting the first chapter. At about the same time I realised I'd bitten off a bit (read: "a lot") more than I could chew with this story, given the plot trajectory and the world-building it requires (which is LOTS the stakes are SO HIGH). Think of Tithe as training in becoming a good enough storyteller and a good enough world builder to write this fic. Which is to say, I am still thinking about/working on/excited about this story (it is NOT abandoned) but it will be updated extremely infrequently (and possibly not at all) until Tithe is finished and I can give Yellow Sky the attention it deserves. So, in short this story is STILL ON HIATUS, and any and all updates until Tithe is finished will be the exception rather than the rule.

The story is unbeta-ed and will continue to be so until I can devote my full attention to it, so apologies for any and all mistakes.

Several reviewers (and thank you for reviewing you lovely humans) have expressed concerns about the Ginny/Tom dynamic and the fundamental squick therein, to which I can only say I know. I get where you're coming from, and this story is not coming from a place of "oh, that squick is okay," or worse, "that squick is sexy." It's coming from a place of "Wow, Ginny, what a character, isn't she great, who is equally fascinating?" and "Wow, TMR is the worst but also such a fascinating character but I've read every Tomione in existence and isn't it time for a change" and "oh, I guess they have a history together, don't they. Hmmm." Which is not to dismiss your squick—I mean, go with your comfort levels and if this story is beyond them, it's cool. Just know that I am fully cognizant of and sympathetic with your concerns.

Chapter 2

The prison was a piece of functional brilliance. It made, not to put too fine a point on it, Nuremgard look about as secure as her Dad's garden shed, a comment which at the time had elicited a sneering aside from Severus Snape about "Gryffindors" and "hubris." But even he had been unable to find a real flaw in the final scheme: two sealed-off chambers deep underground, made habitable by Continuous Air-Freshening Charms and connected by a single door. The second chamber under an Anti-Disapparition jinx, so the only method of access was by Apparating into the first chamber. Each chamber under a separate Fidelius, with a separate Secret Keeper. Only four people in the world had been privy to the location of the first chamber: Luna, of course, being its Secret Keeper; Ginny herself; Severus Snape; and now Blaise Zabini. And Severus Snape was dead. Ginny was the Secret Keeper for the second chamber, and apart from their sleeping beauty—the chamber's sole occupant—she was the only one who could access it. Only two people in all the world had access to that chamber, and of the two, she was the only one who could leave, and she bloody well intended to keep it that way.

It hadn't even taken an Albus Dumbledore to plan it all out, just three clever, desperate people, a few hours of brainstorming, a few minor hexings, and five and a half litres of Gold Roast Doradan coffee. Near perfect security, Severus had explained, was achievable as long as you were willing to sacrifice all flexibility, and they hadn't needed flexibility, they'd needed impregnability. Ginny wondered sometimes how many other chambers like theirs were scattered across the earth, the Secret Keepers long dead and the inhabitants doomed to sleep until the end of the world and its magic. Was that where all those stories of sleeping kings came from? King Arthur and John Uskglass and Owen Glyndŵr? And then she stopped wondering, because torturing yourself with unanswerable questions was for Ravenclaws and masochists and Merlin knew she had enough to be getting on with.

The practical details and the execution had taken much longer—months of labour, with each of them passing out from magical exhaustion at least once. Luckily, you could be one step above a Squib and still play professional Quidditch—all you needed was a spark to make the broom fly, and the rest was athletic skill, and determination, and brains, whatever Severus thought. And no one had known Severus was still alive back then, so he could drain his core to his heart's content, and as for Luna, no one thought much of her anyway.

Months of labour, and months of anxiety. How often over those months had she found herself drawn to the cellar of the Prince family home where their prisoner had been temporarily—well, stored, for lack of a better term? How often had Luna founded her there—perched on a mouldering chair, staring at the slumbering figure, his body shapeless and almost recognisable under all the layers of chains—and taken her by the hand and gently led her away and above ground?

Severus had caught them emerging from the cellar one day. He'd spent the past four hours vanishing stone to hollow out the chambers—they were still constructing the physical prison at that point—and his face was ashen with exhaustion. His lips had thinned at the sight of them, coming up the stairs, one of Luna's fragile, birdlike arms curled around Ginny's shoulders. He'd waited until Luna had disappeared into the kitchen, before rounding on Ginny.

"May I remind you, you stupid girl, that I am the only living Potions Master in the entirety of these British Isles, and that when I brew the Draught of Living Death, you may expect it to have a more lasting effect than a hot bath and a cup of camomile tea!"

Ginny said nothing, plaiting and unplaiting her fingers.

He sneered. "Or perhaps it's not merely my Potions skills, but my competency with warding spells that you doubt? Please, enlighten me: where exactly is it that you find me deficient? I'm eager to reassure you—anything to stop you from skulking around my basement like a dog guarding a bloody bone!"

"Oh for Merlin's sake," she'd snapped, "this isn't about you, Severus. If it were anyone else in that basement… But it's him."

And she'd looked him right in the eyes, unflinching, and he'd been the first to turn away. It should have felt like a victory. Instead, it felt like nothing at all.

When at last the prison was finished—she'd never felt relief like that before in her life. Not even after the Chamber of Secrets. Not even after the Battle of Hogwarts. It did not feel like joy. It was something wilder and purer than that, something like the whip of wind in her face and its tangle in her hair, like the smell of dew on dawn grass, like the sound of the ocean. Because she was done, they were done, it was done—no one knew, and no one had guessed, and they were free, and he would rot under the earth until the stars burned out in the sky.

Years later, when they'd realised what they would have to do and started planning their return, she thought she could feel those stars winking out, one by one.

As Ginny crossed the threshold between the two charms, her senses seemed to scramble—the sound of Luna's voice, as it continued to expound whatever mad, half-believed theory she was currently championing, left a taste of rosemary and spun sugar on her tongue, while the chill of the room ahead of her sent strange gusts of colour swirling across her vision. She shook her head as the synaesthesia faded, and closed the door behind her. She was entirely alone now—no one on (or below) the earth would be able to reach her if something went wrong.

She didn't know what she had expected—feared—but the figure on the table was very clearly asleep, not conscious. Not dead. Point one to Severus. Just to be sure, though, she flicked her wand with a murmured, "Incarcerous," waiting until he was fully bound to the table before she approached.

He was breathing evenly, seemingly unaffected by the cold or his long imprisonment. She beckoned one of the witch lights closer, examining his fingernails: short, his jawline: barely shadowed with stubble, his hair: black and unruly as ever, but no longer than she remembered. A perfect stasis then. The jagged lines of his scar peeked out from under his fringe. Almost without thinking, she reached out to brush it out aside, and then froze, imagining him stirring at her touch, his eyes snapping open—would they be emerald green, or slit-pupiled and red, or—worst of all—black and liquid and glittering with recognition?

And that was stupid, because there was no way he could wake up without the antidote, she'd made sure of that, and the desire to touch him was even stupider than the fear, because Harry was seven years dead, and this—this thing was his killer.

She pulled the timer necklace out from under her robes, the hourglass pendant bouncing awkwardly against her chest as she bent over to retrieve a small crystal decanter from her satchel. Grabbing his chin roughly in one hand, she pulled his jaw open, pulled the stopper off the bottle, and dumped the contents into his open mouth. Then she dropped the bottle, snatching up her bag and retreating as quickly as she could to the other end of the chamber. Her spare hand rose to squeeze the hourglass. She felt it grow warm under her hand as the sand began to fall.

Five minutes, Severus had said. It might take longer, of course—these things varied—but five minutes was all he could guarantee her, and so it was essential—here he had leaned forward, speaking with all the grim emphasis of one who has spent nearly two decades struggling with the products of adolescent procrastination—essential that she complete every necessary preparation within those five minutes. And he'd made her practice until she thought she might scream with the pointlessness of it all—because none of them had thought, had even dreamed that they'd return here at all, much less for this purpose. Not then.

But now—and this was another point to Severus, the bastard—now the incantations flowed from her tongue with hardly a thought. It helped that most of the enchantments had been set up years before, when they first built the chamber, and needed only to be triggered. Long dormant spells of warding and of warning flickered into life. Three successive rows of bars—one iron, one rowan, and one adamantine—emerged from the ceiling, cutting the chamber in two. She coaxed the witchlights into forming a row on his side of the bars, and then made them blaze with light. This was more than just an intimidation trick, illuminating the captive and casting the captor into shadow—she was far from sure he was capable of being intimidated at all. It was a safeguard against Legilimancy. "Your Occlumancy is … passable," Severus had told her, which meant excellent, and well they both knew it. "But only fools and Gryffindors take unnecessary risks. The Dark Lord is one of the few Legilimens accomplished enough to break into your mind without direct eye contact, but it is far more difficult and far less certain, and blinding him may just give you the edge you need."

Turning to herself, she cast the strongest Protego she could muster. The exertion sent bright spots flaring before her eyes. When her vision cleared, she stooped and slung the satchel back over her shoulders, thinking longingly of the silvery folds of Harry's Invisibility Cloak tucked carefully away inside. "The element of surprise in battle is everything," Severus had cautioned. "Strike once, and strike fast. Don't let him see you coming. But if you find yourself ever needing to parley with him—" Good Godric, was the man a seer? "—you must remember that the Dark Lord is proud. Do not antagonise him without cause." And so the Invisibility Cloak remained in her satchel, a last resort.

Finally, reluctantly, she banished the bonds which tied him to the table. They wouldn't hold him in any case, and as Severus had said, she had no wish to antagonise him. Well, all right, to be perfectly honest she had a spanking great wish, a bloody all-consuming passion to antagonise him, but unfortunately, it would be rather counterproductive in this circumstance. And almost certainly lethal.

There was a strange, echoing chime, and the hourglass pendant grew suddenly cold—almost icy—against her chest. Her five minutes was up.

Something had changed in the cell, some intangible quality that made the still air seem suddenly charged, like the air before a thunderstorm. She thought—what was surely no more than a morbid fancy—she could sense strange tendrils feeling around the room, testing the defences, testing her. She thought she heard his breath catch, saw his eyelids flutter.

She took a step closer.

Even if it all fails, she thought with a certain morbid satisfaction, even if he tortures me, it won't do him any good, because Luna's the Secret Keeper for the only way out, and she can't get in here.

She drew up to the bars, just out of the light, as slowly, so slowly, he sat up on the table. His eyes, as he cast them around the room, were green after all, as she'd known and feared they would be. It hurt only half as much as she'd thought, and that opened a wound, small but deep, the sort of deep-down, never-healing wound that old soldiers use to tell the weather.

She inhaled.

"Hello, Tom."

A/N: John Uskglass is from my favourite novel of all time, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell. Owen Glyndŵr is a historical figure, but in this context (obviously) a shout out to The Raven Cycle.

I think "until the end of the world and its magic" is nicked from HPMOR—there'll be a lot of world-building related stuff in this fic that may be borrowed from or inspired by it, but I'll try to cite it all.

Thanks so much to Psych0Geek, lightleviosa, PinkRose235, frak-all, and ExilEden for reviewing! Like, honestly, I wasn't planning on updating at all until I was done with Tithe but the reviews got me feeling inspired again.

If you read and enjoyed, please please do drop me a quick word and let me know! This story is very near and dear to my heart and I'd love to know what you think! Are you more or less confused then you were last chapter?