June 1968
"No; that's all wrong. She looks like she's gone three days without food and is nonverbally conveying that hunger to us." Tom Riddle dragged his fingers through his hair and narrowed his eyes. "What did you say your name was again?"
The witch with the long, straight blonde hair set down the bottle of Madam Blondelle's Blonde-It Creme on the table before her and pinched her lips.
"Verbena Greengrass," she said, and the photographer behind the magical camera gave Tom a rather nervous look. Tom cleared his throat. He had little wiggle room here; this witch was the daughter of an aristocratic, Blue-Blooded family, one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. If he meant to keep climbing, if he meant to truly become Lord Voldemort to these people, he couldn't make those families angry.
"Miss Greengrass," he said in the kindest voice he could muster, "do you mind if we try it with someone else for just a quick moment, just to see if it's a lighting problem or something, and then we'll put you back in there to shoot the ad? Hmm?"
"You know, just forget it," said Verbena Greengrass. "We've spent over an hour taking photographs of this dumb bottle and you've done nothing but criticise."
"My dear," Tom said, tipping his head, "if you wish to be a model for publications like Witch Weekly and This Week's Wizard, then you simply must be willing to put up with a little bit of -"
"You've done nothing but criticise!" Verbena snapped again, and her thin arched brows angled downward in an angry expression. Tom raised his own brows and shrugged.
"Miss Greengrass, I am at a loss for words. All I can say is… thank you for your time, and please know that we'll contact you again should we be in need of your services."
"Yeah. Thanks." Verbena rolled her eyes and stormed off the set and out the door. Tom sighed heavily and licked his bottom lip. His photographer, a white-haired man called Silas, asked quietly,
"You want me to go fetch that other girl? The back up?"
"What was her name?" Tom asked, feeling a bit of dread go through him. Silas pulled out a parchment from a leather folio and said,
"Black. Bellatrix Black."
Tom snapped to attention. Bellatrix Black? The Bellatrix Black? The eldest daughter of Cygnus and Druella Black? Rumoured to be a complete hellion at Hogwarts? That Bellatrix Black?
"She's young," Tom pondered with false calm. "Very young for a job like this. And she's going to have to be willing to temporarily stand here with blonde hair for the ad. But let's give her a try. Go fetch her in from the corridor."
"Yes, sir." Silas rose and walked with a limp toward the wooden door through which Verbena Greengrass had just stormed. Tom paced in little circles, scratching at his thinning, greying hair. He had removed his outer robe for the shoot and wore a white dress shirt with a dark blue waistcoat and dark blue trousers with perfectly fitted brown shoes. He was handsomely dressed - dressed like a man who knew what he wanted and how to get it.
Tom Riddle had come back from the Continent as Lord Voldemort, but very few called him by that name. Very few gave him that respect yet. He'd come back and immediately begun climbing, recruiting his old school lackeys into giving him money and influence. He'd quickly worked his way up to the position of photographic editor for the umbrella company that owned Witch Weekly and The Weekly Wizard. The position not only paid him enough for a modestly elegant flat in London, but it also gave him access to members of the Sacred Twenty-Eight. Of course, encounters like the one he'd just had with a Greengrass girl were less than desirable.
"Mr Riddle, sir?"
He turned at the sound of his name and froze. This model was different than the girl who had come before. She didn't have the build of a model. She was too small, too short, too gangly. Her hair was an explosion of black curls. Her brows were thick. Her lips were full. She didn't look like a model, and yet, she was remarkably beautiful. Tom's breath caught in his chest a little bit, and he nodded as he whispered,
"Miss Black."
"I've heard so much about you from… from my father." Bellatrix Black approached him and actually curtsied, right there in the beautiful velvet dress she was wearing. She bowed her head and murmured, "I've quite liked all the things I've heard."
"Have you?" For some reason, Tom's heart was racing now. He tried to swallow, failed, and finally reached out to put his hand to Bellatrix's shoulder. "D'you mind going blonde just for a few minutes? I can do it with a spell instead of the creme. It's more temporary."
"I'll do whatever you like," Bellatrix said softly, and Tom's eyes went wide. Suddenly he had a vision in his mind that needed to be blinked away, and he cleared his throat very roughly as he said,
"Right. Well, the outfit we had set aside for the shoot got worn by Miss Greengrass as she stormed out of here. I actually rather like the look of your dress, but the colour…"
"Sorry. I always wear black," Bellatrix said apologetically, but Tom shrugged and aimed his wand at her.
"No matter. Let's go with… red. It's a black and white photo; we just need a different shade of grey in the photos, you understand."
"Of course." Bellatrix glanced down as Tom Transfigured her velvet dress from black to red, leaving her with knee-high black boots sticking out the bottom.
"Now… the hair…" Tom carefully walked around her in a circle, bleaching her hair all the way from black to icy blonde. He had to admit to himself that it looked unnatural upon her, that she looked odd with blonde hair, but when he came back to the front, she was still very pretty. She smiled at him, and there was something very genuine in her eyes, in the way that she smiled. He tried to swallow again, and once more he failed.
"Go over to the table, please, and pick up the bottle of Madam Blondelle's Blonde-It Creme. Then turn and look at the label, turn the bottle back to the camera, and give us a winning grin. Have you got that?"
"Yes, sir. I believe so." Bellatrix walked in her high heels over to the table and picked up the bottle.
"Camera rolling," Tom said, and Silas began the moving photograph shot.
"Turn the bottle and look happily at the label," Tom directed, and Bellatrix did just that. He nodded. "Now turn the bottle back to us and grin."
When she did as he said, turning the bottle back to the camera and giving a broad, beautiful smile, his heart thumped in his chest.
"Cut the shot, Silas," Tom finally whispered, and Tom did, pulling a large rectangular frame out of the magical camera. He touched his wand to it to develop it, and then he handed it to Tom to examine. He watched it replay itself three times in a row. Over and over, he watched Bellatrix in black and white, the shades all perfect, the look just right. He watched her pick up a hair product creme with her hair wild and blonde, watched her read its label and look impressed, and then turn it back to the camera and grin. He watched it three times and then handed it back to Silas and said,
"That's the one."
"That's it?" asked Bellatrix. "What was Andy on about, then?"
"Andy?" asked Tom as he changed Bellatrix's hair and dress back to black for her. "Who's Andy?"
"My sister, Andromeda." Bellatrix rolled her eyes a bit. "You see, sir, we just got home five days ago on the Hogwarts Express. On the train, she bet me thirty Galleons that I couldn't model over the summer, that no one would hire me and that I wouldn't be able to do it. I didn't have the right look, she said, much less the right temperament. I went the afternoon that we got home and got headshots taken by Mr Agro and submitted them the next morning to Wondrous Witches Talent, and here I am."
"Andy seems supremely confident - and wrong - in her knowledge of the modeling industry," Tom noted, amused. "How old is she?"
"Fourteen. Two years younger than me," Bellatrix said offhandedly, and Tom's stomach flopped. Bellatrix was entirely too young for him to be finding beautiful, he thought. He chewed his lip and told Silas,
"You can go ahead and take that straight to the printing room and tell them that's the shot for the ad, Silas. I'll finish up here."
Silas waved a hand at Bellatrix, who just nodded at him as he left. Once they were alone, and Bellatrix had made extra sure of that, she looked back to Tom and whispered,
"My father calls you Lord Voldemort."
"Does he?" Tom was happy to hear that. He folded his arms and shrugged. "What else does your father say about me?"
"That you've got ideas that will save the wizarding world from eating itself alive," Bellatrix said excitedly, "and that you're going to form an army someday, an army of soldiers who will fight for you and everything you stand for."
Tom was dizzy all of a sudden. Who was this… this girl standing before him, this girl who only needed one chance to take the perfect picture? Would she only need one shot to make the perfect kill? Who was this girl? He needed to know more of her. He opened the eyes he hadn't realised he'd shut, and he asked as gently as he could,
"And if I were to someday gather myself an army of soldiers…?"
Bellatrix tipped up her chin and smirked. "I'd much rather be a soldier than a model, sir, with all due respect."
Voldemort reached out and put his knuckle beneath Bellatrix's chin.
"I think your sister is going to owe you more than thirty Galleons by the summer's end, Miss Black."
Author's Note: Mwah hahaha. No, this one won't be a full novel-length story; this is just the last Bellamort romp that I'll get in before Fantastic Beasts comes out. My son does modeling and acting (in the Muggle world) so I'm playing around with that microworld in this little story. Haha. I'm also working hard on an original novel at the moment that requires a ton of research, so bear with me if updates on this one aren't my five-chapters-a-day whackadoodle usual. Thank you so much for reading and please do leave a REVIEW! Thanks!