DISCLAIMER: I don't own Harry Potter. It belongs to JK Rowling.
title: Gifts
by: The Rose in Death's Garden
written for: The Pirate Ship Battles Forum (ABS for the Bellamort ship)
pairing: Lord Voldemort/Bellatrix Lestrange
prompts: dusk, cry/crying, faerie, poem
A/N: Credit goes to Lamia of the Dark for the identity of the final gift which I did not have as actually being revealed when this was first published.
The day after Christmas (on his 40th birthday no less) Lord Voldemort wakes up to find a mysterious package wrapped in red paper laying on the table beside his bed. It is not the cheerful red typical of Christmas wrapping paper but rather a deep bloody red.
No one has ever celebrated his birthday before (least of all he himself), but as the holiday has already passed and today is the anniversary of his birth rather than the date on which falls a modernly-bastardized celebration of some antique ideal, he figures that the gift is intended to be a birthday gift. He isn't sure who among his assorted acquaintances and followers would even have cause to know when his birthday is. But it seems apparent that at least one of them does.
I shall laugh rather hard if this turns out to be from Dumbledore.
He picks up the gift and unwraps it slowly and carefully. Inside the small box, there is a vial of blood.
Not the old coot, then.
He wonders what kind of blood it is. Whose blood it may be. Who would send him such a thing? Who would think such a thing made a good gift?
There is no card, no writing anywhere on the box or the paper to indicate who may have sent it.
He carefully packs the vial back away into its box and puts it away somewhere safe. He will forget about it later and it will not cross his mind again until his 41st birthday, upon which another mysterious gift arrives in much the same manner.
This year's gift is a small box again, much the same size as the first, and contains within it a similar small vial. Unlike last year's gift however, this vial is not filled with blood. In fact it contains nothing at all.
There is a small card attached to the rim of the vial with a length of delicate white ribbon. On the card is a poem.
Catch a falling star
A will-o-the-wisp
Or a firefly
Held inside these walls
Of faerie glass
Their living light
Shall never fade
Faerie glass? It isn't something he's ever heard of before, but upon research it appears that it is indeed a thing and a rare one at that.
Lord Voldemort wonders again who his mysterious benefactor is and why they have suddenly started sending him birthday presents. And it is at this time that he remembers the gift from last year. The bottle of blood. He goes to look for it among his other possessions but can't remember where he put it and in the end he does not manage to locate it. In his frustration at losing the item, he nearly crushes the faerie glass jar which is still clutched in his hand.
He carefully packs his new gift away back in its box, vowing to himself to take better care of this precious item than he did his previous gift.
On the morning of his 42nd birthday, he wakes up with nervous excitement sparking through his veins in anticipation of the present he is sure to receive. But when he opens his eyes and looks to his bedside table, there is no mysterious package waiting for him. Disappointment crashes through him and he is surprised at the intensity of the emotion. He hadn't realized how much he had come to look forward to his birthday after the events of the past two years.
This year's gift does not arrive until dusk. It is not a glass vial this time, and is not even wrapped, although it does have a red ribbon tied around it. It is a live snake, small and brilliant-green in color and it looks to be a poisonous one as well.
He speaks to his new pet in its own language and bids it to tell him who sent it. Unfortunately the serpent has nothing to tell him except that it was sold by a merchant who deals in dangerous animals and the buyer must not have conducted the transaction in person because it only recalls being handled by the shopkeeper and the shop's usual delivery-wizard.
The years go on and many more gifts arrive but he never comes any closer to discovering the sender's identity. He is certain it must be one of his followers but he can't for the life of him figure out which one.
Christmas comes and goes but no box wrapped in blood-colored paper appears this year. Lord Voldemort wonders if the person who used to send him presents is dead now, or if they simply no longer have the desire to gift him with things. He feels a vague sense of sorrow at the loss, but pushes the emotion away. He doesn't have time to think about things like that right now. He has a war to win.
The whole situation is far from his mind when, mere days after he has broken his most loyal followers out of Azkaban, Bellatrix approaches him with a hauntingly familiar object clutched in her hands.
"I'm sorry it's a few weeks late, my lord," she says as she holds out the blood-red box to him, "but Happy Resurrection Day."
So she would choose to celebrate the day of his rebirth over the day of his original birth?
"It was you all along," he says, at a loss for anything more articulate to say.
"Yes," she responds with a small smile. "I was... young and starstruck back then, when I started..."
"You regret that your first gift to me was the vial of your blood?" he inquires, sensing the reason for her hesitation.
"Not regret, per se," she hedges. "But yes, I wish I had chosen something a bit more appropriate at that time."
Her gift to him this year is the same at that first one. It seems a perfectly appropriate gift now.
On the second anniversary of his resurrection Bellatrix brings her master a gift again. Tears stream down her cheeks as she hands him the blood-red box, but he ignores that she is crying as he accepts the gift from her. Once he sees what is inside the box, however, he draws her into his arms and holds her against him until long after the flow of her tears has stopped.
He still has one hand clenched around this year's gift. The faerie glass is warm against his palm, pulsing with warmth from the shard of her soul trapped within.