Summary: Safety. Freedom. Protection from the darkness. That's all Estella Pitch has ever wanted for herself and for her younger brother, Julian. If it meant securing those three things, Estella would do anything – even accept a mission from the Dark Lord. If that means breaking Harry Potter's heart, well, it's nothing personal - or at least not yet.

This story will take place from fifth year onwards and revolve around an OC, Estella Pitch. Although I don't know what direction the story will go in the future, it will initially be Harry/OC (to a certain extent, anyway). It's not my first story on this site, but it is the first on this account and it's an idea that I've been nursing for a while now, so your thoughts and opinions are valuable. Reviews are much appreciated!

Femme Fatale

BOOK 1: The Seductress

"Chaos is an angel who fell in love with a demon."

~ Christopher Poindexter

CHAPTER I: THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA

There are only two things in the world that I really need to be happy: the sea and my brother. And I could probably make do without the sea.

The two of us spent today at the beach, running and shouting and swimming together, but now, with the sun slinking its way down towards the horizon, we've split up to attend to quieter pursuits. My sandals have been tossed aside and lay several feet behind me out of the reach of the water, along with the paperback romance novel a friend had insisted I read but that turned out to be insufferably dull and a red-and-white striped towel that has long been abandoned in favor of the sun's natural drying prowess, and I am sprawling on the beach and watching the waves roll over my feet.

I drink in the sensations of it all: the briny air filling my nose and lungs, the swishing of cool water between my toes, and the grit of sun-warmed sand under my skin. It's perfect.

When I turn my head and look down the beach, I can see my little brother. Jules is crouching over a tide pool some fifteen meters away. As I watch, he pokes at something inside with a stick of driftwood and then grabs at something lying beside him. That would be the journal in which he makes crude drawings of and semi scientific notes about his more interesting finds. He calls it research.

The boy should have been a merman. Instead, he's a Pitch, which the next best thing.

Once, when my father was in one of his more paternal moods, he told me that we Pitches belong to the sea, and I believe it. We've lived by the water for as long as anyone can remember, four generations in our current house and at least three more in the one before that. The Pitch House sits on a cliff on a microscopic inlet of the Atlantic and looks like a posh Victorian townhouse except for the fact that it's five miles away from Tinworth, the nearest town or village. Historically speaking, it is also how we made our money. Family lore has it that our ancestors were the first to trade with the merpeople and the first wizards to promote ships as a viable method of transportation.

Well, our trading days are long gone, but at least we've kept the house. Not that anything good ever happens in there.

I sigh, thinking about our inevitable return to the house, and twist my wrist around just enough to read my slim silver watch.

Then I scramble wildly to my feet, running towards the pile of things I left laying behind me. Sand flies in the air as I grab for my sandals, and I hop first on one foot and then the other as I put them back on. Once this feat is accomplished, I begin to beat the sand off my skin with a towel.

"Jules!" I bellow, almost frantic; instantly, my brother's head shoots up. "We have half an hour to get ready for the party! We've got to go right this minute!"

It isn't long before he comes running over to me with a petrified expression and wild eyes. Every part of him, from his skinny legs to his snarl of chocolate-colored curls, is dripping wet.

A casual observer wouldn't be likely to pick the two of us for siblings. Jules has wild dark hair and an overabundance of freckles that stand out even against his suntanned skin; I have long, pale blonde hair not many shades darker than my skin, which absolutely refuses to darken. You'd have to look closer to realize that we both have our mother's slightly upturned noses and our father's amber eyes.

That doesn't matter. I'm his sister no matter how different we might look, even on the days when being his sister is a particularly trying job.

"You were supposed to be watching the time!" he accuses. He's scowling, which is his default expression on dry land, but it isn't very threatening coming from a scrawny ten-year-old.

"And you were supposed to be keeping your hair dry, but just look how well that's turned out," I retort.

As if he's just realized how wet he is, my brother pales. "Mother will see how wet I am! She'll murder me!"

"Don't be a ninny, Julian," I say as I lean over to scoop up the book I left on the ground. I straighten up to smirk at him. "Dry off on the way!"

I hurl the towel at his face, fast and hard, and flee up the hill towards the Pitch House. It takes Jules a moment to realize what I did, but when he does, he emits a howl of indignation and charges after me. I cackle like a hag as we race, taking turns with the lead on our way. I have a head start and longer legs, but Jules is small and fast, and when we finally arrive at the front door of their house, no one knows exactly who won the race.

It would take me ten minutes to dress myself and get ready for the party if I was left to my own devices. As it is, I am much too busy trying to solve the living crisis that is Jules. No sooner have I opened my wardrobe to select an appropriate set of dress robes than my little brother hurtles into my room without so much as a knock on the door. He strikes a dramatic pose as I turn to look at him, a large smile plastered across his face.

"I'm dressed," he declares. This is true. He is dressed, but not in robes that actually fit.

"You can't wear those robes, Jules. They're too short," I say reprovingly, turning back to my wardrobe and choosing a set of purple dress robes from inside. "Please go change into your new ones. And brush your hair, for Merlin's sake, it looks like a pixie nest."

Jules doesn't move. "I can't wear the new ones."

"Why not?"

"They're itchy," he replied simply.

I frown at him. "Why are you just now telling me about this? We're leaving for the party in twenty minutes, Jules. I can't do anything about it now!"

"I know. That's why I'm wearing these. These aren't itchy," Julian replies. He does it slowly and exaggeratedly, as if he is explaining some difficult concept to a small child.

"You can't wear those robes, Julian. They look awful, Mother would kill you for wearing them and me for letting you." I sigh loudly. "Just go put on the new ones, alright? You're just going to have to deal with the itchy robes for one night."

Grumbling, Julian leaves the room, and as soon as the door closes behind him, I change into my own dress. It's purple and silky, a simply cut design with little ornamentation besides the little row of pearl buttons going down its bodice. I look in the mirror, conclude that the dress was flattering enough to suit her mother and plain enough to suit myself, and head towards the bathroom to fix my hair and face.

I'm in the process of plaiting my hair in front of the bathroom mirror when Jules' reflection suddenly joins my own. I frown at his reflection.

"Oh, just look at that hair," I say with a sigh. She brandish my hairbrush and beckon for my brother to come closer. He does so grudgingly and, as I pick at the tangled mass of his dark hair, makes a face at me in the mirror.

"Essie, I'm ten years old. It's sad that you insist on brushing my hair," he gripes.

"Jules, you're ten years old. It's sad that I have to," I reply with an easy half-smile. I toss down the brush, deciding that his hair is as tangle-free as it's going to get. "Now, go to the parlor and sit on the sofa, and don't you move an inch until I get down there. If you mess up your hair, I'm going to murder you."

He moves so fast that I only barely catch a glimpse of his bare feet.

"Jules! Shoes!" I shout after him. If he hears me, he doesn't reply. I just sigh and get back to preparing for the party.

When I appear downstairs five minutes later, hair styled and make-up applied, I find that Jules has not obeyed my admonition. He is busily crawling on the floor, looking for something that has rolled under the furniture, and when he sees me enter the room, he quickly jumps up and plants himself on the sofa. I sigh and sat beside him wordlessly, careful not to muss me dress in the process.

Every other day of the summer holidays, our mother and father are completely unconcerned about what Jules and I are doing, but Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy's annual anniversary party forces us to be a family unit. It's a night of dress robes and champagne and pretending, if only for a few minutes, that we are the ideal family. This is so my father's domestic reputation can be solid as his business and political reputation in the eyes of upper crust pureblood society. In order to ensure that I'm the perfect pureblood daughter and Jules is the perfect little scion, we have been told to meet our parents in the parlor at exactly five minutes before seven.

The parlor is the fanciest room in the Pitch House, and it is also my least favorite. The walls are painted charcoal gray, the windows covered in stiff drapes of green and black damask, and the seating consists of antique wingback chairs patterned in deep green and an uncomfortably overstuffed black leather couch. The dark stone floor seems to leave the room permanently frigid, despite the large, ornate fireplace in one corner of the room and the crystal chandelier loaded with black candles that hangs overhead.

Worst of all is the tapestry hanging on the wall facing the sofa, which I detest with every fiber of my being. Massive and gruesome, it's an heirloom from my mother's side of the family, depicting a Lestrange ancestor in the heinous act of raping a Veela woman. He has her pressed against a tree in some ancient forest, arms bound above her head and tunic hanging off her in tattered shreds. She's in mid transformation. Her long, silvery hair is morphing into downy feathers and her lovely face into a vulgar beak, and scaly wings spread uselessly behind her. Not that my ancestor minded much, apparently.

Why anyone would chose to depict such a vulgar scene is a mystery to Estella, as is the decision to border the image with delicate pink roses, but I'm still staring at that border when Mother descends into the parlor.

I've heard it said that my mother and I look more like siblings than mother and daughter, and that's true – and it ought to be, considering how much money was spent on potions and creams and cosmetics to keep my mother's face from wrinkling and her hair from graying. At the age of forty, Mrs. Ramona Pitch, formerly Lestrange, is nearly identical to the image of herself in wedding photos taken when she was barely eighteen. She's tall and waifishly thin, with hair and eyes the color of chocolate and creamy, unlined skin.

"Hello, my darlings," Mother says, voice too loud for her proximity to Jules and me. Honestly, does she think we're deaf? "I expect that you're both ready to leave for the party? Yes? Stand up, let me take a look at you."

My brother and I stand in perfect sync and wait patiently as our mother looks us each other from head to toe. She starts with Jules, eyes traveling the length of his body from his neatly combed hair to his shiny black shoes (Thank Merlin he heard me, I think as I do the same), and then silently repeats the procedure with me. Without comment to either of us, she turns her head towards the hallway and cups her hands around her mouth.

"Milton!" Mother calls in the general direction of her husband's study. "Milton, the party! Are you ready?"

"Of course I am," comes a low voice from the hallway, and a moment later, my father steps forward into the parlor. "What do you take me for, a child?"

I'm pretty sure it would be impossible to mistake my father for a child. Milton Pitch is twenty years older than his wife and looks every bit his sixty years. He reminds me somewhat of an elderly lion: bushy tawny hair gone mostly silver, pronounced sideburns, a trim beard, and a somewhat wide, flattish face that somehow retained its dignity despite the wrinkles becoming more and more prominent every day. Broad-shouldered and perhaps an inch shorter than his wife, my father knows how to command attention. Most people probably wouldn't notice, but my father's black robes (identical in cut to Jules') are trimmed with silver material that matches my mother's dress exactly. I'm sure they've done this on purpose. It helps them look like a loving couple when I know for a fact that my mother hasn't actually lived in this house in about nine and a half years and my father has at least two mistresses.

Mother provides Father with presentable, legitimate offspring and Father provides her a luxurious lifestyle. Mother spends six months of the year in Paris and the other six months on some Mediterranean island, Father attends to his businesses and his mistresses, and I try my best to take care of Jules when I'm not at Hogwarts and leave him to our ancient house-elf, Spitz, the rest of the year. This is how our family works.

It hasn't always been like this, and one day, it won't be anymore. One day, I'm going to take my brother and get out of this toxic hellhole.

But today is not that day. Today, we're going to a party.

"Yes, well," my mother says dryly, choosing not to make a remark on my father's griping. She stands beside Jules and puts a hand on his shoulder. "Shall we go?"

But before anyone can answer her question, she freezes and looks down towards Julian. Her eyes are very cold.

"Julian," she begins slowly, "you stink of brine. Why do you stink, Julian?"

Jules is quiet, but his eyes dart towards mine. He is waiting for me to come to his rescue like always, and like always, I deliver.

"Does he really smell that bad?" I say in a tone of mild interest. I make a show of stepping closer to him and inhaling, then scrunching up my nose. "I'm sorry, Mother. I bought some soap at a shop in Hogsmeade that were meant to smell like a sea breeze. I was going to give it to you as a birthday gift, but it smelled so strongly that I decided against it. It must've gotten mixed up in Jules' things."

"Why didn't you throw them out?" Mother snaps, and I know that my act has had its intended effect. While she still isn't happy Jules smells so salty, she is now more annoyed at me for supposedly buy the soap in the first place – especially because I had purportedly intended to give it to her.

I shrug. "It was rather expensive. I thought I could regift it."

That bit was for my father, who had been looking skeptical right up until that second. Regifting an expensive gift is a perfect excuse to appeal a closefisted old coot more concerned about his money and his reputation than his family's wellbeing. He now looks more impatient than anything and glances meaningfully at his watch. Despite what he would have most people believe, Father is not a patient man, and he doesn't care what anyone else in this family does unless it negatively impacts his own status. Being late to such an important party would certainly be viewed in a negative light, which we all know quite well. The concept of fashionably late is not endorsed by upper crust pureblood society.

Mother opens her mouth to argue with me, but Father is having none of that.

"We're going by Floo tonight. Estella, you first," he says sternly, and I nod obediently despite the fact that I would rather walk to Wiltshire than get in the damn fireplace. I reach into the little obsidian box on the mantle that houses our supply of Floo powder and gather up a handful of the silver grit, toss it into the flames, and announce my intentions to go to Malfoy Manor. Then I step into the fire, elbows tucked in and eyes closed. I come out sputtering and coated in ash, feeling like I might have inhaled all of the soot in England on my way.

The Malfoys' gardens are always grand and sweeping and majestic, but they never look exactly the same two years in a row. Last year, the hedges were a simple green maze twisting elaborately around the grounds but this year they only border the fence, and they're covered in tiny white flowers, and two years ago, the fountain was most definitely made of granite but has now been replaced by an identical model made of quartz. There used to be rose bushes, but they seem to have been replaced with a set of wrought iron benches with a rose motif. The only real fixtures in this garden are the identical pair of white peacocks that strut from one end of the garden to the other with no apparent goal but to look fabulous.

"How long is the average lifespan of a peacock?" I ask idly, and my companion shrugs his shoulders.

Theodore Nott has a good seven inches or more over me, being over six feet tall and a likely candidate for the tallest boy in fifth year, but his height rather fails at impressing when one considers the lankiness of his frame. In correspondence with his thin, pointed body, he has a thin, pointed face, with sharp cheekbones, a short nose, and teeth that almost seem too big for his mouth when he speaks but turn out to be exactly perfect on the rare occasion that he smiles. The teeth, along with his big, dark eyes, make him look at bit like a rabbit, and the mousy brown color of his hair doesn't help.

"Too long," he decides eventually, and I smile. Theo has hated those birds for as long as I can remember and neither one of us has any idea why.

He and I are leaning up against shrubs and looking out towards the house, which is what we do every year because there is really nothing else to do except stay inside and either let people fuss over and about us or dance, which neither of us have any interest in. Jules is playing hide and seek with some boys about his age by the fountain, and I look in their direction every once in a while when someone shrieks a little too loudly, but all in all, this is one of the quieter places the party has to offer. I'm glad. I don't care much for the noisy music and overly loud laughter the people inside insist upon.

"I'm surprised Draco hasn't put in an appearance yet," I say, not because I actually want to see him but because I'm so used to it. "Where is my future husband, I wonder?"

I'm only joking. Draco Malfoy is not my fiancé, or at least he isn't yet. His family is pure and rich, my family is pure and rich, our bloodlines haven't intersected in about three generations – thus, by the very nature of pureblood marriage, he and I are perfect for each other. As long as our families remain friendly and we ourselves are cordial, I am a strong candidate for the next Mrs. Malfoy. Therefore, Malfoy and I are forced to play nice for approximately five minutes at each of these parties so that our mothers can watch us and giggle like schoolgirls and dream up a wedding so spectacular people will be talking about it until the next blond, ferret-faced Malfoy scion gets married.

"Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear," Theo says with a little scowl. "Your dashing groom is coming."

I can see him now, too, and make out his features through familiarity if not through sight: slicked back platinum hair, silver robes, and gray eyes that would be rather pretty if they had any warmth in them. He picks his way through the garden in a straight line, walking directly through the boys' game of hide and seek without so much as looking sideways at them.

"I'll never actually marry someone like him," I hear myself say out loud. "If I have to marry something slimy, I'd prefer a flobberworm. It'd have more backbone."

Theo sniggers appreciatively, but as Malfoy comes closer, I begin to wonder if something is wrong. Even for a Malfoy hosting party where he has to be polite, he seems stiff and uneasy. His expression is calm, but it seems to be forced. There's no sneer on his face, which is enough to make me suspicious. I'm even more so when he skips the usual witty comment and goes straight to business.

"You're to come with me," says Malfoy shortly. Then he looks at Theo with a very even expression that is so entirely unlike him that it's a little creepy. "Not you, Nott. Just Pitch."

"If this is you trying to get some alone time with me, Malfoy, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not that kind of girl."

"It isn't me who wants alone time, Pitch," he says. There's an expression on his face that makes me think of dark things.

"In that case…" I mumble, and I look sideways at Theodore. He nods his head in the direction of the house, and I turn to see that Malfoy is already making his way quickly back across the lawn.

As soon as Malfoy deposits me in front of the drawing room door, he hurries away as if he's being chased by a pack of werewolves. I look uneasily at the closed door before I slowly raise my hand to knock on its dark wooden surface. There is no answer, but the door does began to creak open – and I take that as a sign that I'm meant go enter.

The person I'm meant to see is sitting in the ornate high-backed chair at the head of the table, if you can call the creature in front of me a person. It – he – is something out of a nightmare, hairless in a vaguely reptilian way, with a chalky face, skeletally thin body wrapped up in black robes, and eyes so red I can see his irises from all the way back here. His hands are strangely long and his nose is so flat that it might not exist at all except for the slits where his nostrils should be. As I stare at him, his face contorts into something that could be a smile if he had any lips.

I've been waiting for something like this to happen since June, when the Boy Who Lived came out of the Third Task with a corpse and a crazy story about a dead man coming back to life. I've been waiting for something like this since I was eleven and heard about Professor Quirrel's mysterious demise, since the Dark Mark appeared in the sky at the Quidditch World Cup, since I was five years old and caught a glimpse of a skull and a snake tattooed on my father's arm. I've been waiting for something like this my entire life, but never in my wildest dreams have I ever come face-to-face with my father's lord.

What could he want with me? I'm not one of his Death Eaters. I'm a fifteen-year-old girl.

"Little Estella Pitch," Lord Voldemort says in a voice that is both high and hoarse. "My, how you've grown. Come sit and talk with me, my dear."

It takes a lot of effort to convince my muscles to work, but I slowly make my way towards the end of the table and take the seat that the Dark Lord motions directly to his left. I flinch at sound the heavy chair makes when I pull it out from the table, but the Dark Lord does not. If anything, he seems pleased by it or, perhaps, by the way I have reacted to it.

"Would you like some tea, Estella?" he inquires cheerfully.

"No thank you, milord," I say as politely as possible.

"I don't recall you being this skittish when you were an infant, but then, I suppose I did look rather less menacing then," he says, and then he laughs fiendishly. "Many things have changed in the last fourteen years. I do believe you've become an older sister in that time as well. What was your little brother's name?"

The mention of my brother puts me in a panic that, try as I might, I cannot rid myself of.

"J-Julian, milord." I swallow, trying to get rid of the tremor in my voice. "He's ten now."

"Ten. It won't be long until he'll be going off to Hogwarts, then," he says pensively. "Unless, of course, you believe some of the rumors going around. Rumors that perhaps he isn't as magical as a wizard must be. Rumors that your brother is a squib."

"A S-Squib?" I whisper.

No one knows that Jules is a Squib. No one but me and, apparently, the man in front of me. The man who hates muggles and muggleborns. The man who detests anything nonmagical.

Voldemort continues as if I haven't spoken.

"Of course, your mother and father swear that he isn't, but you and I are not fooled, are we, Estella? Your parents don't know anything about Julian. They don't understand him like you do," the Dark Lord whispers. "You're the one who looks out for him, teaches him, and dotes on him. You are the one he calls out for when he's frightened. You are the one who loves him."

I can feel myself break out into a cold sweat the malice in this man's eyes, stupefied in the face of his knowledge. These are things that he simply cannot know. I have never in my life told anyone about Jules' lack of magic, not even Jules himself; I have never in my life told the extent of my relationship with Julian. Like my parents, I have never revealed to outsiders just how dysfunctional my family really is. If anyone has a clue about what happens at Pitch House, they haven't heard it from our mouths. There is no way Voldemort, who has been dead or mostly dead for about fourteen years, can know.

But he does, and that makes him more terrifying than anything I've ever had the misfortune to see.

"Oh, you love him so much," the Dark Lord continues in a voice as soft as silk. "You've spent years trying to save him, haven't you? From the moment you realized what he is, you've been making plans. You've been plotting an escape."

I swallow again, hard. "An escape, milord?"

"Oh, yes, an escape. You're going to get rid of your parents, aren't you? Have them locked up in Azkaban and whisk Julian to safety. Hide out in the muggle world and pray that no one ever finds you." The Dark Lord Laughs. "You are a fool if you think that will work, but isn't that what love does? It makes fools out of everyone. Love is weakness."

I can barely breathe. All I can think is that this is why he's called me here, that he's going to kill me and then my brother all because of my stupid schemes. When Jules dies, it will be all my fault. I'll have failed in my one job.

"Now that we've established that, I have a question for you, Estella Pitch," he continues, as if we've come to a consensus on some great debate. "What would you do to protect the brother you love so much?"

I'm not supposed to be the protector, protests a childish voice in my mind, and this is true. That was always someone else's job, and he was much better at it than I am. That person is gone now, and if anyone is going to protect Jules, it has to be me.

"Whatever you want me to do, I'll do it," I say, and my voice does not shake. "Please, please, please don't hurt Jules. I'll do anything."

The Dark Lord smiles. He looks like a viper posed to sink its fangs into my flesh.

"Anything," he breathes. I've never heard anyone take so much relish in three syllables. "Yes, that's precisely what I thought you would say."

He reaches out and fixes his bone-white fingers around my plait, weaving it through his fingers and stroking it like a normal person might play with a cat's tail. His hands are cold and skeletal, and I know that I will never be able to wash away the sensation of being petted by a corpse or of the sticky moistness of his breath on my skin as he leans in close.

"I want you to break Harry Potter."