August 1970
"Albus Dumbledore!" Voldemort sneered the name with derision as he stalked around a tree. To his right, he could see Dolohov and Yaxley tangled in duels with Dumbledore's lackeys. Bellatrix Black, his newest and youngest Death Eater, was standing over an unmoving form that seemed most assuredly dead.
Suddenly Dumbledore emerged from behind a tree, and he held his wand up with a steady hand.
"Perhaps this will stop you for some time, Tom," Dumbledore said gently, and those words made Voldemort hesitate for just long enough that he was socked with the blinding white spell from Dumbledore's wand.
"No! My Lord!" he heard Bellatrix screaming, and then he felt her hands wrap around his bicep.
Suddenly everything was hot and painful, and then everything went very quiet indeed.
It was as though water was draining slowly from Voldemort's body. That was the sensation. Drip, drip, drip. Something was leaching out of him; was it blood? He blinked his eyes open and frowned when he saw that he was on the floor in the entryway of his house in Cornwall. He could hear the waves that were outside and down the cliff.
"My Lord?" asked a soft voice from beside him. His eyes fluttered shut again against his will. "Are you all right, My Lord?"
"Bellatrix," he whispered, feeling the tip of her wand touch his chest. She murmured a few spells to wake him, and he felt her magic thrum through him like music. It was almost odd, the way her spells coursed through his empty veins.
"My Lord," she murmured again, "you're white as a sheet, Master. Oh, how can I help you? I wonder if there are potions stores here."
"My wand," he mumbled, and it was in his hand in a flash. He brought it to his own throat, feeling like he was moving through molasses, and he incanted, "Reddo Vis."
Nothing.
Nothing happened. It was as though there was no magic within him, though that was a ludicrous thought. Voldemort frowned and instructed Bellatrix,
"You try that spell. Reddo Vis."
She obeyed him, and then he was gasping for air and sitting up straight. He scowled, rising slowly to his feet. He aimed his wand quickly at a Chinese vase in the main corridor, and he said firmly,
"Confringo!"
His Blasting Curse didn't take hold, or even materialise from his wand. Voldemort's mouth fell open as he walked around his house, trying to Transfigure objects, change the colour of draperies, Conjure water… anything. But nothing worked. He threw his wand to the ground in the parlour and aimed his hand at his piano.
"CONFRINGO!"
Nothing.
"My Lord?" asked Bellatrix in a shaking voice, and when he whirled on her, she shrank away a little. He watched her gulp and ask carefully,
"Shall I send an owl to the others? Letting them know their master is fine?"
She was more intelligent than he'd given her credit for being, Voldemort realised. He'd recognised an unhinged sort of ruthlessness within her, but this was different. He could see in her coal black eyes that she understood what had happened. Albus Dumbledore's curse had robbed the great Lord Voldemort of his power. It was almost certainly temporary; most wicked curses of this nature were short-lived but irreversible. This was terribly Dark magic for a man like Dumbledore to be using, though, and Voldemort had no way of knowing how long he'd be without his magic.
Bellatrix was right, of course. Sending an owl to Malfoy Manor informing the Death Eaters that Voldemort would return soon enough would reassure them. It would also allow him to hide here in Cornwall whilst the curse wore off.
"You may not leave," he told Bellatrix suddenly, and she just nodded. She understood this, too. Without memory alteration - a risky endeavour, and one Voldemort couldn't perform now, anyway - Bellatrix was the only person besides Dumbledore who knew that Lord Voldemort currently possessed no magical abilities. The fear on her face told Voldemort that she understood exactly what the ramifications of such a thing might be for her.
Voldemort rushed into his library and pulled open the drawer of the desk. He extracted a quill and some parchment. He dipped the quill into the ink and wrote,
Malfoy,
I suffered a few wounds during the battle in Wales. Nothing egregious, but I shall be at my home resting for the time being. Send word of any casualties. Update me daily on goings-on. No battles or attacks until I give the word or return to the Manor.
LV
"Take this. Go send the owl," Voldemort nodded crisply, passing the parchment to Bellatrix. "Come back downstairs as soon as you've sent it off; the owl is in a cage on the table in the upstairs corridor."
"Yes, Master," Bellatrix nodded, trotting out of the library and up the stairs. Voldemort watched her go, thinking to himself that she was awfully loyal and very competent. He tried to peer into her mind with Legilimency, for he could usually do it all the way across a building from someone.
Nothing.
"Damn you, Dumbledore," he muttered. He knew the spell Dumbledore must have used. Dessicco Magicus, or the Magic-Draining Curse, was incredibly difficult to perform properly. Dumbledore had managed to send Voldemort through space, as well, which was annoying in its own right. Bellatrix seemed to have only caught the second spell, since she'd grabbed her master's arm in an attempt to save him. Her magic seemed unaltered.
Voldemort had performed a Magic-Draining Curse on a fellow student at Hogwarts, but he'd gone undetected, and the girl had wound up in St. Mungo's for three weeks until her powers came back. Three weeks. Hopefully that was all this would be. Voldemort could stay away from his minions for three weeks, but not for three months. As far as he knew, there was no counter-curse, no potion to reverse the effects. One simply had to 'wait it out.'
"My Lord." Bellatrix came bounding breathlessly into the library, dipping into a reverential curtsy. "How may I serve you now?"
"Now we wait, Bellatrix," Voldemort said tightly. He gestured out toward the expansive decking outside the house and suggested, "Why don't you go enjoy the view of the sea?"
She frowned. "My Lord, is there truly nothing I can do to help you?"
Voldemort shifted on his feet and shrugged a little. "You've helped plenty. You've demonstrated your worth. Your value. Your loyalty."
Bellatrix looked a little awestruck at the praise, and she blinked quickly as she murmured, "Master, I shall always do anything I can to preserve and enhance your authority. I feel… awful… that I didn't… that I couldn't…"
"You tried to push me out of way of the spell," Voldemort smirked. He drummed his fingers on his desk. "It was my own fault; I let my guard down for a half second. Do you like wine?"
Bellatrix's thick brows furrowed. "Wine, My Lord?"
"Yes. I find right now, devoid of power as I am and utterly bereft of anything to do, that I should like to drink some wine. Do you like wine?"
Bellatrix's full lips parted. She was rather pretty, Voldemort thought. Perhaps he could make use of that fact while they were here waiting indefinitely. She'd be willing. Of that he was certain.
"I like wine," she nodded, and he gestured for her to follow him from the library. He stalked quickly toward the kitchen, his robes billowing around him. He had to rifle around in a drawer for a while to find a manual corkscrew. He could have asked Bellatrix to open the bottle of wine with magic, but he wasn't going to spend weeks begging her for spells. So he twisted the corkscrew into the top of a bottle of red elf-made wine, and then he pulled the cork out with a little pop. He pulled down two large wine glasses from the rack to the left of his sink, and as he poured the wine, he heard Bellatrix say cautiously,
"This is your home. Dumbledore sent us to your home, My Lord?"
"Yes, this is my home." Voldemort handed her a glass of wine and said sternly, "We're in Cornwall. You'll forgive me if I don't give you information beyond that."
"Of course, Master. Thank you." She accepted the wine and stared down into it, her cheeks going a little pink as she asked, "And I'm to stay… until it wears off?"
"Yes." Voldemort sipped at his own delectably dry wine and dragged the pad of his thumb over his bottom lip. "I've a spare room you can use. Don't worry."
"I wasn't worried, My Lord." Her voice was just a little whisper then, and she raised her eyes to study him. She'd never been this close to him alone. She was thinking about that fact, and Voldemort didn't need Legilimency to tell. She thought he was handsome; her eyes gave that away. But she worshipped him beyond ordinary corporeal attraction. He was her master, her everything.
She would be willing, a little voice in the back of Voldemort's mind told him, though he wasn't sure why he was thinking about being physical with the girl in the first place. He almost never craved witches; his priorities were elsewhere. For some reason, today of all days, when his body felt empty and weak, she seemed awfully pretty.
"Would you care to go look at sea?" he asked, his voice hard as iron. He sipped again at his wine, and Bellatrix nodded, a tiny smile crossing her lips.
"The sea. Yes, My Lord," she said, following him from the kitchen, down the corridor and out into the blazing sun.