Alice's head throbbed. When the polyjuice wore off, she wasn't sure, everything was a bit of a blur aside from the ache in her temple. Each blink of her eyes felt like an intense labor, sending a wave of ache through her skull. She was only vaguely aware that she was in a fairly nice chair - a soft, mauve, velvet with a carved wood detail in the frame - the body bind holding her still in the seat.

"Mrs. Longbottom," came a high, raspy voice, "I trust that my Death Eaters have taken care of you... fairly well?"

Panic rose up in Alice and she moved - the throbbing increasing as she turned her head - to look up into the reddish-brown eyes and pale face of Voldemort. He took her chin in his hand, the fingers long and cold against her skin, and he turned her head, peering at her injury with scrutiny. "I do apologize for Antonin. He is a bit... rough about the edges... particularly when it comes to the takers of the polyjuice potion." He released her chin. "You see, one of your own recently attempted to murder his brother while hidden by the polyjuice potion. But I suppose you had nothing to do with that mission."

"I don't know what you're talking about," Alice said truthfully.

Voldemort smiled and waved his wand. First, her body bind released and she fell forward before catching herself, and then a second chair like the one she sat in scooted up and he sat upon the very edge of it, in a stance like one who is about to get back up again, his back stiff and straight so that he was peering down his nose at her. "Of course you don't. You're one of Dumbledore's." He smiled coldly, then turned, "Abraxas. Send your elf to prepare a meal for Mrs. Longbottom... she looks peaky, and we do need to be sure to take care of our guests." He paused, then, "You are a pureblood, aren't you, Mrs. Longbottom?"

"Yes," she said quietly, scowling.

"Then we shall see to it that you receive the best of care, m'lady," Voldemort smiled as Abraxas Malfoy, who Alice hadn't noticed hovering just past Voldemort until the Dark Lord had spoken to him, silently nodded and moved out of the room to obey the command he'd been given. "It is lucky for you, Mrs. Longbottom, that I am here this evening... I understand the ways of Dumbledore much better than my Death Eaters do. I understand that you are not privvy to the entire plan which has been put into action tonight, but only the part which you played within it. That is the way of Albus Dumbledore. I am afraid my Death Eaters do not understand this and they would have expected you to be able to divulge more than you truly know. They may have tortured you for information you truthfully could not give." He paused as a house elf scurried into the room, snapped his fingers, and a small table appeared between the Alice and Voldemort.

The elf threw a table cloth over the table - dark green with black embroidery 'round the edges. Voldemort nodded as the elf clicked his fingers and a plate containing a small cut of meat and some small round potatoes, herbed perfectly, appeared before Alice.

"Eat my dear, you will want to keep up your strength," Voldemort said.

Alice shook her head.

He frowned. "Mrs. Longbottom, you can rest assured that I value your life too much to do something silly like attempt to poison you... or whatever it is that you are thinking. You are a pureblood, after all... therefore I shall do my best to see that no more of your blood is spilled." His eyes flitted to her temple.

Alice didn't move.

He shrugged and waved his wand - a full tea service and two cups appeared,  and with a twist of his fingers, the tea pot lifted and poured out a steaming up for both of them. A single cube of sugar and just a splash of milk joined the tea in his cup and he reached for it, holding the bone china handle between his two fingers. The cup was plain white with a single ring of gold on the top lip of the cup, the saucer matched. The handle was a golden snake, curved to shape of the finger hold. Her head really was hurting so much that she could've sworn that golden snake was blinking at her.

"As I was saying," Voldemort said cordially, stirring his tea with a twist of his fingertips over the cup, which hovered on it's saucer at level with his hand as he lazily leaned his elbow on the arm rest of the chair, "It is lucky for you that I am here, one who understands how Albus Dumbledore works, to spare you from the torture that my Death Eaters might have put you through for information you do not have. I am aware, however, how Dumbledore keeps tight the plans he puts into action. The left hand does not know what the right hand is doing. Well, how does the right hand help the left if they are unaware of one another's movements is what I wonder?"

Alice stared at the table cloth.

"Dumbledore is a master manipulator, a king of wizard chess. He plays with real lives, however, rather than one of those silly game boards." Voldemort smiled, and Alice was struck - not for the first time - that Voldemort was likely a handsome man once. But now he seemed hollowed, sunken almost, the way a pumpkin carved for Halloween is. Like a shell what had once been, the guts and seeds removed.

"Grindelwald was the same way, you know," Voldemort continued. "With one small exception. Grindelwald was weakened by love." He nodded, "That's right. When it came down to it, he was defeated because, unlike Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald was unwilling to kill the thing which he loved." He paused. "Love is a weakness which even the most powerful wizards fall to." He shook his head, "But not Dumbledore. No... Dumbledore's love comes with a caveat, doesn't it? Do as he says, as he wants, and you shall receive all the benefits of a beloved. But cross him --" Voldemort smiled cruelly. "That is power, Mrs. Longbottom, true power. The ability to give up - to kill and destroy - even that which you love... in the name of the Greater Good."

Alice said, "I disagree."

Voldemort smiled. "Do you?"

"Yes. Love is power. When you love someone and you're willing to die for them - that's powerful."

"But if you die for what you love... then you are dead," Voldemort said simply, stating the obvious with amusement to his voice. He chuckled, "And then what? You're gone. And what good did your love or death do in the world?"

Alice thought for a moment, then met Voldemort's eyes with her own. "Well. If nothing else, it's a fuck you to people like you," she said evenly.

Tension filled the room, though there was no visible reaction upon Voldemort's face. He simply lifted his tea cup and sipped the tea calmly. As he did this, an actual snake coiled it's way around the chair, over his lap, the body undulating, climbing up in loops until the head - huge, with a flickering tongue - came up over the back of the chair and lay gently upon Voldemort's shoulder. He absently reached up and stroked the snake's scaled skin gently.

"We have met before, have we not, Mrs. Longbottom? You and Mr. Longbottom both, if I'm not mistaken." Voldemort asked.

She met his eyes. "Yes."

"And your husband... he loves you?"

"Yes."

"And you him?"

"Yes."

"So he will come for you... fight for you... potentially die... for you. Or you for him. Mr. Longbottom and all of your friends who love you too much to let me have you without a fight." Voldemort smiled. "They always do come, don't they? Reliable. Predictable. Another weakness."

Alice was quiet a moment, thinking, then she reached forward, took the tea cup before her and lifted it from the table. She stared into Voldemort's eyes as she sipped, then put the cup down smoothly and said, "You call it a weakness but you have yet to defeat us... even when we were just kids. So what's your excuse?"

He hissed and with a crackle of magical energy, the whole room seemed to flicker and go darker. She looked around, eyes wide, and then without warning, before Alice could even comprehend the movement Voldemort made, she was suspended in the air, upside down, the blood rushing to her already throbbing head and she let out a shriek of surprise and pain.

A ripple of laughter went through the room around her as she spun through the air - flashes of the Death Eaters that were gathered in the peripherals of the room, watching with hungry expressions on their faces. She heard an insane cackle and a flash of a massive amount of black curly hair, a bright face laughing directly in hers, chanting, "My Lord will teach you a pretty little lesson, you nasty little girl!"

"You stupid hag - you don't scare me. And neither does your so-called Lord," Alice said sharply.

The black haired witch shrieked with rage, but before she could strike her, Alice flew to the high ceiling and then dropped abruptly down, the fall arresting just before she would have cracked against the marble floor. This was repeated - a yo-yo - several times. Alice spun and spun until she felt herself becoming sick... the Death Eaters all a blur of laughter and features she couldn't distinguish apart. Suddenly, just when she was certain she couldn' ttake another moment of it, she was stopped mid-air, eye level with Voldemort, upside down, her hair hanging wildly from the top of her head. He stared into her eyes.

Tears seeped from Alice's eyes as she hung upside down, her head in screaming pain. She could barely breathe.

Voldemort's voice was a growl. "You dare to speak so defiantly to one who could so easily break you? ...one who could so easily kill you?"

Alice stared back into his eyes and though her voice shook, she still managed the words: "Is death your only threat? I do not cower in fear of death like you do."

She was dropped to the floor and let out a cry as her arm snapped beneath her.

"Your husband will come to rescue you," Voldemort whispered, "And we'll see if he likes what he finds when he arrives." He paused and Alice found she was staring at his feet. "Take her away... She had her chance to do this nicely. Let her learn her lesson the hard way. Some blood is bad, even if it is pure."