July, 1968

"Bella."

She walked into his office and gave him a cursory bow of her head. He was Lord Voldemort these days, not the Tom Riddle who had come back from the Continent four years earlier and clawed his way to some semblance of influence. He sat at his desk and tipped his head at her, shutting the door behind her. Bellatrix stepped closer, folding her hands in front of her.

"Hot as Hades today," said Voldemort, and Bellatrix smirked, looking round the office.

"You are skilled with Cooling Charms," she noted. "It's practically frigid in here."

"D'you mind the chill?" he asked, raising a brow, and Bellatrix's smile widened.

"Not even a little bit," she replied. "You know I'm frozen from the outside in. Or the inside out. Whichever."

"Frozen, are you?" Voldemort tented his fingers together and gestured to the chair opposite him. Bellatrix sat and crossed her ankles, tucking her curls behind her ear and studying the face of the wizard opposite her. She examined the forehead and cheek that looked like they had been burned and healed, the lips that looked chipped and scarred. She looked at the one eye that always seemed swollen, like it had taken a punch, and the slightly greying hair that was combed backward. She still found him handsome, somehow. She always had, ever since he'd shown up on her father's stoop looking for money and loyalty.

"Do you remember that first dinner?"

He'd been in her mind, she realised. His Legilimency was powerful, and she never bothered even trying to resist. She'd long ceased taking offence at his invasions. She nodded. Of course she remembered that first dinner. It had been June of 1964. Bellatrix had been twelve years old, freshly home from Hogwarts, and Voldemort had arrived at the Black family home in London. He'd been Tom Riddle then, at least publicly. He'd been invited to stay for dinner.

"All through the meal," Bellatrix said, "I listened to you talk about putting things to rights for the magical world. I listened to you talk about building a movement that would last a thousand lifetimes, that would be bigger than any of us. I listened to you beseech my father for funding and his fealty, and all the while all I wanted was to prostrate myself at your feet and swear myself as your soldier."

"My twelve-year-old soldier." Voldemort quirked up half his mouth. He tapped his fingertips together and whispered, "After dinner, you ran up to me in the corridor and begged me to let you in. What was I meant to do with that child?"

"You agreed to train me," Bellatrix nodded. "And that you have done. Master."

He shut his eyes. His throat visibly bobbed. She had only recently begun using that word, but she knew he liked it. He liked the idea of being a master, of having servants. His fingers tightened round themselves, and Bellatrix hummed,

"You have taught me Necromancy, and poison-making, and curses, and -"

"Theory. All theoretical knowledge." Voldemort sounded almost frustrated. "The things I could teach you, Bella… if you were of age and could do magic without the Ministry hounding your wand…"

"Well, I shall be seventeen in September," Bellatrix noted, blinking. Voldemort sighed, licking his bottom lip and staring at her. He nodded.

"Yes. You are very nearly a woman grown."

Suddenly Bellatrix's stomach twisted. The hairs on her arms prickled. She sucked her bottom lip between her teeth and lowered her eyes to her lap. She felt very strange just now. She had always found him handsome. For years they'd bantered. They'd worked together in close quarters. But with one comment - one single comment - he had made her head spin.

She was nearly a woman grown. What did he mean by that?

"Bella."

She snapped her eyes up, and his face was serious as he asked,

"Do you want a drink?"

"A… a drink?" Bellatrix dragged her fingers through her hair and gulped. "I'm not allowed to drink."

"I make my own rules here," Voldemort said. He rose and walked over to a large wooden cupboard, which he opened. He pulled out a dark bottle of wine and two crystal glasses, balancing them all in one hand and arm as he shut the cupboard. He brought the wine glasses and the wine back over to the desk and used his wand to uncork the bottle. Then he poured two glasses of red wine and handed one to Bellatrix. She accepted, staring down into the liquid and contemplating that the most alcohol she'd ever had was the minuscule amount in Butterbeer. She scratched at her head and sipped the wine.

Bitter. It was bitter, and it tasted like wood and fruit. She winced, pulling the glass away from her mouth and setting it on the desk. Voldemort laughed a little at her, dragging his thumb over his bottom lip in a way that made Bellatrix shiver.

"If you're going to be a grown-up witch, you must drink wine," he told her, and Bellatrix scoffed.

"Is that a rule?"

"I told you; I make my own rules here."

Bellatrix huffed a breath. Lord Voldemort kept an office in Malfoy Manor, where he also had an apartment of rooms. He'd lived here for two years now, with his old friend Abraxas. Bellatrix was a frequent visitor. She looked round the office and thought of how many times she had been brought here by Tom Riddle to learn about raising the dead, to learn about poisoning enemies. He had honed her mind, sharpened her wits here. The learning had happened over school holidays, of course. Soon enough, Bellatrix would go back to Hogwarts yet again, for her sixth year of school.

"Yes, you leave on the first of September," Voldemort noted, in her head again, "but you do not turn seventeen until the twenty-first of that month. That means I can't properly teach you Occlumency or any of the other skills I mean to impart to you until the Christmas holidays."

Bellatrix picked up her wine and sipped at it. She stared at Voldemort, trying not to pull a face at the wine, and she set the glass down again.

"Occlumency," she repeated. "You mean to teach me Occlumency, Master?"

He sucked in air hard and let out a shaking breath. His teeth sank into his lip. She knew why. It was that word - Master. She sipped more of her wine and whispered,

"You mean to teach me Occlumency."

"I mean to teach you to be my soldier," Voldemort snapped. "Isn't that what you want? What you've always wanted?"

"Yes." Bellatrix felt her smile fade. "It is."

She drank the last of her wine and set the glass on the desk. Voldemort poured her some more wine, and she picked it up with a trembling hand. She held her glass in her shaking fingers, and she asked,

"When will I get to fight for you?"

"When there's a war," Voldemort replied simply. "You'll kill for me."

Suddenly he rose from his chair, striding around his desk. Bellatrix stared up at him, and something compelled her to set down her glass of wine and to slowly rise from her chair. The lone glass of wine she'd drunk had been enough to set her head to swimming, in her inexperience with liquor. She stepped closer to Voldemort and gazed up at him, wondering,

"Have you gotten taller?"

He tipped his head and shook it. "No. Why? Have you gotten shorter?"

"You seem particularly tall today," Bellatrix informed him. He narrowed his eyes down at her and let out a little choke of a laugh.

"I remember when you were a flat-chested child staring up at me with innocence in her eyes. How things change," Voldemort said. Bellatrix raised her eyebrows and giggled a bit.

"Yes. Things change. I am no longer flat-chested. But, with all respect, are you really sure I was ever innocent?"

"No." Voldemort shut his eyes. "No. You never were innocent. But you were a child."

"I was." Bellatrix knitted her hands together before her. "Not anymore."

"Nearly." Voldemort's voice was just a whisper then, and his fists balled at his sides. He shook his head, eyes still shut, and murmured, "Still some time before you're -"

"A woman grown," Bellatrix finished for him. She studied the features on his face that had once intimidated and frightened her, the ones she'd always found handsome. She gazed at the eyelashes concealing his dark stare. When he finally opened his eyes and looked at her, she said in a quiet voice,

"How I wish I were a Legilimens, so that I could see what you really think of me, Master."

His nostrils flared, and his chest rose and fell quickly beneath his heavy black brocade robe. He shook his head a bit and mumbled,

"That's the wine talking. I ought not to have given it to you. You should go home now."

"All right," Bellatrix agreed, her ears ringing and her eyes burning with humiliation. "Will you take me, please?"

"Erm… use the Floo Network," Voldemort suggested, touching at his forehead. "Don't feel much like Apparition just now. Go use Abraxas' fireplace to leave the same way you came. Goodbye, Bella."

Bellatrix felt real tears forming in her eyes now, and though she tried her best to fight them off, they boiled up and nearly bubbled over onto her cheeks. She shrugged and asked in a helpless voice,

"Have I angered you? Are you cross with me, Master?"

"Stop calling me that!" he growled, his voice rough and hard. She jolted a little at the harshness in his voice, and she sniffled a bit. Why? she thought, knowing he'd perceive the question. Why shall I stop calling you that? Suddenly Voldemort's hands were on her shoulders, and he was panting through his nose, and his eyes were sharp as flint as he snarled, "When you call me Master, it crosses a line, Bellatrix. You have been my student; you have been a child. You have been the little girl I've been training up, but now it's… you are…"

"A woman grown," Bellatrix whispered, and Voldemort's eyelids fluttered shut. His breath slowed and calmed, but his fingers tightened round Bellatrix's shoulders as he said softly,

"You are not the urchin, the little creature, who came begging for lessons in the Dark Arts. You've a grown witch's form now. Soon enough, you'll have wizards clamouring for you, if they aren't doing so already."

Bellatrix scoffed and shrugged. "Just Rodolphus Lestrange. He's desperately in love with me, I think."

Voldemort opened his eyes slowly and nodded.

"We'll have a war, and when we do, you will fight for me and kill for me." He took a half step closer to Bellatrix and noted, "You are no child now. I have made my peace with that."

"You do not seem so very peaceful," Bellatrix observed. Very much on instinct, she touched at the place on his chest above his heart, and he seemed shocked by the contact. But he reached up and covered her hand with his, brushing his thumb over her knuckles, and he seemed almost sad as he asked,

"Do you remember, when you were thirteen, and I taught you that the Egyptian Pharaoh Shepseskaf was a wizard who had turned his children into Inferi? You listened to that story with all the rapt of attention of… you were an eager pupil. Do you remember?"

"I remember, Master." Bellatrix stepped a little closer to him and squeezed her fingers on his chest. "Do you remember last year when you made me memorise the instructions for making Paralysing Potion and Convulsing Draught and recite them five times in a row? I still recall every ingredient, every turn of the stirring stick in the cauldron you had me commit to memory. I could make those poisons now."

"And you will." Voldemort nodded. "You will. Do you remember when you were fourteen and your cousin Zyrene got married at Castle Rosier, and you disappeared for two hours? No one could find you. I knew you'd vanished up into the attic where your grandmother kept all of the heirlooms that interested you. But I didn't tell anyone I knew where you were."

Bellatrix grinned and squeezed her hand harder on his chest. She chomped her lip and recalled, "I came down all covered in dust, and my mother nearly tanned my hide with her wand for it. Then you danced with me."

"Then I danced with you." Voldemort smirked. "Dusty little thing that you were. It would be different now; you were still a child."

"It would be different," Bellatrix repeated. His hand splayed atop hers, and she swallowed hard as she stared up at him. "Dancing would be different now."

"Yes, I think it probably would," Voldemort nodded. He cleared his throat and stepped back from her. "What have you got planned for your birthday?"

"I haven't got anything planned." Bellatrix gave him a sad smile. "You know very well that I haven't got any real friends."

Voldemort stared then at the two glasses of wine on his desk and blinked a few times. He finally said,

"I'm sure Rodolphus Lestrange will make the day special for you."

Bellatrix coughed out a little noise. "He'll try."

Voldemort's cheeks darkened a bit, and Bellatrix felt a sudden sting of confusion. Just what was happening here today? He was making her tingle, making her stomach coil with… with want. He was blushing at the idea of young, pimply Rodolphus Lestrange giving Bellatrix attention on her birthday. What was this? Where was her steadfast teacher?

"Master?" Bellatrix whispered the title. He raised his face to hers, and he asked in a quiet voice,

"Didn't I tell you to leave?"

"Yes, you did." Bellatrix gulped. She wanted to kiss him, all of a sudden. She wanted to fling her arms around his shoulders and push herself up onto her toes and press her lips against his. She wanted to smell the ocean on him. She wanted to put her cheek to his brocade robe and feel it scratch her skin. She wanted to -

"Bella."

She stared at him, at the way his eyes were flicking up and down her body before settling back on her face. His features twisted a little, and he finally shut his eyes.

"Hot as Hades out there," he said. "Stay cool. Goodbye, Bella."

"Goodbye, Master." Bellatrix whirled on the ball of her foot and strode toward the door of his office, knowing she really did need to leave now. She had her hand on the doorknob when she heard a single pained word from behind her.

"Bella."

She turned her face to see him standing with his hands folded before him, his lips pinched into a tight line as he said stiffly,

"See you, then."

She curled up half her mouth and nodded, turning the knob. "See you."

Author's Note: To Be Beguil'd By One will be finished very shortly. Real Life has been very difficult lately; I appreciate my readers' patience and understanding with my absence from that story and writing Bellamort in general. I look forward to finishing To Be Beguil'd By One as well as fleshing out this story.

I will say this - I have received negative comments in the past on stories where Bellatrix is very young and I will just ask that if the age gap isn't your thing, kindly move on and read something more to your liking. Thanks.