8 years, 2 months, 13 days, four hours and twenty-three minutes was all it took. Insignificant to him, barely more than a drop of water in the ocean.
He had been patient.
Oh, he had been so very patient.
Waiting for this day.
8 years, 2 months, 13 days and four hours since he had kidnapped her out of her relatives home, pushing apart the barely-there blood wards like cobwebs.
8 years, 2 months, 12 days and seven hours since he worked out what she was. What she had been carrying all her life. How she was precious. How she was his. How anyone who had harmed her in any way was now his to punish.
8 years, 2 months, 10 days and two hours since he came up with his plan.
8 years, 2 months, 9 days and eleven hours since he had performed a ritual to get his old body back.
8 years, 2 months, 7 days and five hours since he had lined up the last remaining of the order, and executed them on the spot.
8 years, 1 month and 3 days since he had wrapped her up in chains and torn through her mind like wet paper.
8 years, 1 month and 3 days since he had softly kissed the top of her head and promised that he would always be there for her, that he would never leave her side again.
7 years, 11 months and 19 days since he had finally, mercifully, given in to her begging and allowed her to see the last remaining of the order. Since he had instructed his most faithful to polyjuice as her most trusted, her most loyal. Since he had informed them to talk at her with words he had plucked right out of her pretty head that he knew would crush her.
Freak.
Unnatural.
Slut.
Whore.
7 years, 11 months and 19 days since her breakdown that shattered the ballroom of Slytherin manor beyond repair.
7 years, 11 months and 19 days since her breakdown that harmed everything within a hundred feet except for her former friends, shielded by some unconscious form of magic. As if unbelieving that they would actually do this. Which they wouldn't, of course, but to her the evidence said otherwise.
7 years, 11 months and 19 days since he first put the seeds of doubt in her mind. Oh, and how beautifully they bloomed up through the neglected cracks of her psyche.
7 years, 9 months and 23 days since he put her in a magical coma. He had tried to be nice. To please his horcrux, yet all the gratitude she gave him came in the form of attempted escapes.
6 years, 9 months and 23 days since he woke her up and calmly informed her of her nature. That he only needed her alive, not conscious, oh happy, or even healthy. That he could do anything to her again and again if he wished, for time meant absolutely nothing to him.
6 years, 9 months and 20 days since she had thrown herself at his feet and begged so prettily, pleas tumbling from her rosy red mouth to never do that to her again, that she was aware of ever second but couldn't move or do anything.
6 years, 9 months and 17 days since he had felt absolute horror shoot through the bond, and realized she had only just thought about what he said to her.
6 years, 9 months and 10 days since her suicide attempt.
6 years, 9 months and 10 days since he had rushed to their shared bathroom, and found her drowsily admiring her wrists as they bled into scalding water.
6 years, 9 months and 10 days since he had carried her to his bed and placed her under a deep sleep, this time ensuring she couldn't feel anything.
6 years, 9 months and 9 days since he had created a beautiful room, deep underground, that only he could access, and placed her on the soft bed, before literally encasing her in glass and hundreds of different protections. His very own sleeping beauty.
6 years and 8 months since he had started forcibly manipulating the bond, allowing himself into her dreams.
6 years, 6 months and 21 days since he had managed to manipulate her dreams directly.
6 years since he had woken her back up again.
5 years, 10 months and 29 days since he had begun to experiment with the bond in earnest. Figuring out how to cause pleasure, how to cause pain, and how to slip into her mind unannounced.
5 years, 4 months and 22 days since he had begun to imitate her thoughts. Making them think his suggestions and commentaries within her mind were her own.
5 years, 4 months and 22 days since he had begun owning her in earnest. Because, while before, he may have owned her body, her did not own her mind, her affections and loyalty. And that is what he desired above all else from his horcrux.
5 years, 2 months and 10 days since he had finally taken off that chain around her neck, allowing her bodily autonomy once again.
4 years, 11 months and 14 days since he had bitten her neck, leaving a claim for the entire world to see.
4 years, 9 months and 13 days since he had asked about her relatives. About the dreams.
4 years, 5 month and 12 days since she had finally given in, and tortured her relatives.
4 years, 1 month and 11 days since she had killed her rapist.
3 years, 10 months and 7 days since he had started using his influence over her thoughts to explore her woman's body.
3 years, 5 months and 2 days since she had been the one to initiate contact with him - in order to try and plead him to spare the lives of some useless mudbloods, but nonetheless. She had initiated it.
2 years, 7 months and 13 days since he had given her wand back.
2 years, 2 months and 1 day since he had forced her to bare her very essence to him. Her soul. His soul.
1 year, 8 months and 6 days since their last arguement. One that he won, of course, due to the fact that he unabashedly tortured her through the bond until she passed out.
1 year and four months since he had crept into her mind and caught her warring between attraction and trying to convince herself that he was a monster who killed her parents.
1 year and three days since he felt it hit her like a bludgeon that he was the only one left. That all her friends and family were dead, and now she only had him. And how it delighted him so.
9 months and 17 days since he had first felt lust bloom down the bond from her end, directed at him.
7 months since he started exploring her body while also forcing her to think of him.
7 months since he realised she had yet to orgasm in her young life.
6 months and 28 days since he made sure that she would never be able to without his permission. Just another way to ensure she stayed his forever.
5 months and 16 days since they had kissed.
3 months and a day since he had promised her that wherever she ran, from now on, he would always, always find her. That he would burn down the world and then burn down her until she came undone and never thought to be anywhere except by his side where she belonged.
2 months and two days since he had fashioned her a throne next to his, smaller and with chains that could engulf her tiny form whenever he saw fit.
1 month and 21 days since he admitted that she was the most beautiful woman alive, but he liked nothing better than when her faced was twisted with torment and her throat raw from screaming.
1 month and 21 days since she had laughed delightedly and whispered in his ear that she would keep fighting forever if only to make him happy to have such a willing subject.
29 days since she had initiated the kiss first.
19 days since she had writhed underneath him in pure ecstasy, riding out her first orgasm purely through pleasure he had inflicted through the bond.
12 days since she had come into the bedroom they now shared, high as a kite off dark magic, practically screaming at him through her thoughts to throw her on the bed and fuck her.
7 days since he had eaten her out.
3 days since he had fingered her.
20 minutes since he had fucked her.
10 minutes since she had fallen asleep in exhaustion.
5 minutes since he had begun reminiscing.
8 years, 2 months, 13 days, four hours and twenty-eight minutes, and he could finally declare with absolute confidence that she was completely and utterly his.
And would be forever. His horcrux. His queen. His cocksleeve. His to debauch, his to fuck, his to torture, his to give pleasure to, his to do anything he wished. And she had finally, finally accepted her place underneath him, in his bed, at his side. And there would never be any going back.