My first gift fic of the year, written for the lovely Sylvia. And, um, I'm not quite sure which of your prompts I chose to use. This is kind of a mash up of a few. But. My writing tends to be kind of weird, and this is no exception. Hope you enjoy!
I own nothing.
i
Tom knows things. Looks into someone's eyes and sees their soul, past and present and future all laid out like a book with its spine pressed flat. His Death Eaters are open and willing when it comes to him. They tell all and it doesn't matter because he'd know anyway – he always knows – but maybe the fact that the information is given willingly makes it different, in a way.
Lucius is sleek and silver-gilt, pain brimming up through the corners of his mind. He loves his wife and he hates her unborn child. It will be a boy, blond and beautiful like the man whose spawn it is. And he can't bring himself to care for his own son.
This makes Tom laugh.
Bella adores him. Her gaze is warm and dark as a caress, so different from the stares of the orphanage staff, and at night her whispers are soft. To her the pleasure is indescribable, passion and desire that should be etched on stone, an eternal inscription on a tablet beginning with the words thou shall not because it has no place among mortals.
No place among men.
The Blacks are a strange family as a whole, he thinks. Generations upon generations of witches and wizards with vibrant eyes and bloody hands. The sort who kill for an afternoon feast and chop off their own limbs at his behest.
And Regulus. Regulus makes Tom wonder. He is like his brother in flesh and in mind, spirit glowing strong and bright with the sort of conviction that won't stand for their manmade hell. He doesn't belong among them, the fallen. Tom knows that someday, somehow, Regulus will realize this and work his way free. The bonds woven around his Death Eaters are strong but not unbreakable. They must have an escape, if they are eager enough to try.
He can't have a traitor working his way from the inside out.
ii
"My Lord, you called?"
The younger Black stands before him with shaking hands and lowered eyes. He and his brother are wrong for their blood. Soft, innocent, scared.
Tom fingers his wand.
Bartemius Crouch has a son who is dark as this changeling is light. The man has straw hair and a cruel twist to his mouth, a face that has seen evil and revels in it. His hands itch to wrap around another's neck.
He would be useful for the cause, Tom muses. A snake in the Ministry's den.
So he orders Regulus to bring the boy to me.
iii
The Crouch boy stands before him with awe on his face, arm tight in Lucius' grasp. Regulus stands in the corner, his eyes wide and frightened and saying this is wrong.
Tom knows the time draws near. He will be leaving soon. He will not stand for this much longer.
And Bartemius Crouch will make a fine replacement, brutal and cold.
The first rite of initiation is torture. Pain, clear-cut and fine as glass. Those who are worthy rejoice at the chance. They revel in the agony like the monsters they are.
Tom never watches when he casts the spell. Stares at the walls, the window, the doors, because the light – the life – in his victim's eyes is too much to bear.
He doesn't want to see. Won't look as he takes it all away.
"Crucio!"
The man screams and Regulus is cringing. Close, Tom thinks. So very close to the end. Maybe he should give him one final task, a way to go out with a bang. The Black family has given him so much, over the years, that perhaps he should return the favor in one small way.
After all, the only way a Death Eater leaves is through death.
iv
"My Lord, have you been sleeping well at night?"
Lord. My Lord. He is not. He is a scared little boy desperate to leave a footprint on the world. Hiding beneath the ratty orphanage sheets until the matron comes around, face bathed in the harsh light from electric lamps. Watered-down milk and a rumbling gut.
"My Lord?"
Bellatrix. Beautiful Bella. Her skin is soft and her eyes are dark. Tom presses both hands to her cheeks and wonders if she has yet gotten too close. Broken through the shell and the layers that surround him – charming madman evil – to find what is beneath. She cannot do that, he knows, cannot break through and find the true him.
He is the Messiah. Their god, their religion, everything.
And beneath it all he is nothing. Darkness and emptiness and pain.
And if they knew this, they would leave.
v
Regulus is ready. His mind swims with betrayal and he takes great pains to avoid his master's eyes.
Tom sees it regardless.
He is Lord Voldemort, and he always knows.
So he sends the man on a mission from which there is no return. Hints at the existence of a locket with blackness inside and sets the house elf a test to see where his true loyalties lie. Regulus is a good person, Tom can see that, less obvious than his brother but just as brave. He will take the chance. Do anything to enter that grey-green cave and slay the beast inside.
He gives him an out, a double victory for the light. Lose Regulus Black as a follower of the dark and take a piece of Lord Voldemort's soul. The Order will be rejoicing, he knows. A great loss for his own.
Nagini slithers across the floor and he absentmindedly raises a hand, allows her to coil up and around his legs and arm. She hisses and he feels that bit of himself pulsing beneath her skin.
Regulus and Bartemius. The traitor for the dark and the traitor for the light. They are both changelings, he thinks, both at odds with the families and their blood. They stand close, at times, whispers reverberating from beneath the masks, and he wonders what they could possibly have to say. Two betrayers, souls on opposite sides of the war.
One will be his savior. And the other will be his demise.
He is all too aware that by giving Regulus that chance he has set the ball in motion. The chain of events which will lead to his death – because evil, he knows, always loses in the end – has begun.
It's fate, predetermined. It will happen whether he likes it or not.
And when it comes down to it, it's not his place to interfere.
fin