"No. I'll hear no more about it. The party is cancelled."
"Please, Mrs Malfoy!" Bellatrix threw her hands up at the dinner table. "I couldn't live with myself knowing I was the reason you'd cancelled the annual Malfoy New Year's Eve party."
"We've just had our Christmas party," Abraxas Malfoy pointed out, for the grand event had occurred just two days before the Black family tragedy. "There's no need for two parties in one month."
"But you always have both parties!" Bellatrix exclaimed. "The entire Pureblood community looks to the Malfoy family for celebration this time of year."
"It doesn't feel appropriate to host a raucous drinking party two weeks after… after…" Jessamyn Malfoy pinched her lips. Bellatrix sighed and folded her hands on the table.
"Perhaps I am an unsentimental creature, Mrs Malfoy, but I prefer to think of myself as practical. I think that part of the grieving process is learning how to continue living once the lost ones are gone. Wallowing in sorrow forever does no one any good. And I need the distraction. Really, I do. I beg you, host the party. Just like always."
Mrs Malfoy frowned deeply but finally looked to Abraxas and then Lucius. She touched at her perfect blonde bun and said at last,
"We'll host the party. In honour of the Black family, toasting to their memory and drinking to the idea that their remaining daughter has a healthy and prosperous 1969. Agreed, Abraxas?"
"That seems like a fair compromise," Abraxas Malfoy nodded, picking up his knife and fork. Further down the table, Tom Riddle, who had been sitting in silence during the entire conversation, sipped at his wine and then said quietly,
"I think it appropriate that normalcy be maintained even in the face of loss. As our movement grows, loss will be an inevitable factor. We can not dissolve into the depths of mourning for months at a time whenever family members or even allies are lost."
The Malfoys looked amazed by this revelation, but Bellatrix felt her heart speed up. War. He was talking about war. She smiled a little where she sat, turning to him and lifting her glass of wine to her lips.
"And shall we have birthday cake, sir?" asked Abraxas Malfoy suddenly, and Bellatrix turned her gaze, confused. Tom Riddle huffed a breath and confessed,
"I was hoping to keep that an old school factoid, Abraxas."
Mr Malfoy smirked and chewed a bite of steak. When he swallowed, he said, "No birthday cake at the New Year's Eve party, then. Message received."
"Wait." Bellatrix snapped her face to Mr Riddle. "Your birthday is New Year's Eve?"
He rolled his eyes so hard it looked like the perpetually bloodshot eyeballs would roll right back into his skull. Mr Riddle touched at his eyebrows and said begrudgingly,
"Yes, Miss Black. Thanks so very much, Abraxas."
"But there are only three days until New Year's Eve!" Bellatrix complained. "I've hardly any shopping time left!"
"Shopping time!" Jessamyn Malfoy seemed very amused, giggling a little where she sat. "Tom, you've managed to convince the girl to buy you gifts already?"
"Of course not," Mr Riddle said seriously. He turned to Bellatrix and shook his head. "No gift required."
Bellatrix's stomach churned with embarrassment. She smiled shyly and said in a voice playful enough to cover her faux pas,
"I just wanted an excuse to go shopping."
Mrs Malfoy laughed again, and Bellatrix forced a choked little laugh as she cut into her steak. Further down the table, Mr Riddle just stared at his plate.
Bellatrix opened her door from her quarters to the corridor, and she let out a shaking breath.
"My goodness!" exclaimed the portrait of the young mother on the opposite wall. Bellatrix looked up.
"Too much?" she asked, and the young witch in the painting raised her auburn brows.
"You're hardly dressed, my dear," she fretted. Bellatrix looked down at herself. She'd worn the shortest dress she owned, one that reached mid-thigh and was made of shiny, watery black silk with billowing long sleeves. Bellatrix had worn knee-high, heeled leather boots, along with her silver locket from Mr Riddle. She'd lined her eyes thickly with black kohl and had worn iridescent pale pink lipstick, and she'd tied her hair into a chignon at the nape of her neck. She stared up at the portrait on the wall and protested,
"It's a New Year's Eve party. I'm dressed enough."
"Well. Enjoy yourself, then," said the young mother in the painting. Bellatrix huffed and walked off, stalking down the corridor and hearing swing music coming from the ballroom downstairs. She pattered down the winding stone stairs and walked into the Malfoys' ballroom, and the moment she did, two dozen faces turned to stare at her. Bellatrix's cheeks went hot. She reached up to hold her silver locket and walked over to the bar, which was being tended by a somewhat bland and unskilled Mulciber boy.
"Lavender Slip-Up, please," she requested, and the boy nodded as he poured gin, tonic, and lavender syrup into a glass. As he passed it over, the pimple-faced boy said carefully,
"Sorry about your family."
"Thanks." Bellatrix took the drink and started slurping it down at once, walking away and finishing it in four enormous gulps. Soon she was standing holding an empty glass full of ice cubes, and she realised just how drunk she was going to get tonight.
"Welcome! Welcome! May I have your attention, please?"
The projected swing music stopped playing, and Abraxas Malfoy's voice came resonating through the ballroom. Everyone went silent. Bellatrix hustled up to the bar to get another Lavender Slip-Up, thinking Mr Malfoy was going to make a toast and she wouldn't have a drink. She went back out to the centre of the room with her drink as everyone settled, and Mr Malfoy said,
"Welcome to this New Year's Eve. We would be terribly remiss on this evening not to pay solemn homage to the Black family, whom we have all lost. Let us all raise a glass in their memory. Tonight belongs to them."
"To the Black family!" cried a voice, and Bellatrix blinked a few times as she drank deeply from her Lavender Slip-Up. She listened then as Mr Malfoy said,
"And as we approach midnight, and a new year, I should like to propose that we all drink to the health and happiness of the remaining member of the Black family. Bellatrix, may your 1969 be prosperous and happy. We all wish you nothing but success and contentment. To Bellatrix Black!"
Her face went warm then as everyone cried out and drank to her. She sipped from her drink and nodded her thanks. Then the room went silent, and Bellatrix decided to speak.
"My family would want us to keep on living," she called out. "So, please. Celebrate this holiday. Thank you all for the kind words."
Abraxas Malfoy nodded and started the music back up, and gradually the party fell back into rhythm. Bellatrix pinched her lips and kept sipping at her drink. A pair of Slytherin girls from school approached her, and she gripped her glass tightly as she forced a little smile. A pretty brunette girl with a face full of freckles was the bravest and the first to speak.
"How very brave of you to come to a party so soon after the tragedy, Bellatrix," said Ligeia Travers. Bellatrix frowned and insisted,
"It's a good distraction for me." She drank more deeply from her glass, and the second girl, a short, plump blonde called Ianthe Rowle, amended for her friend,
"I think Ligeia just means that we're all so very impressed by how well you're handling this. If it were us, we'd be in pieces, and you're so strong."
"Well, thanks, Ianthe," Bellatrix nodded, taking another sip. She was starting to feel the drinks now, she thought. She was almost finished with this one. Ligeia Travers glanced behind Bellatrix and announced,
"Tom Riddle keeps staring at you. He's talking with Mr Avery and Mr Nott, but he's looking over here over and over again."
"Oh. He's my neighbour here," Bellatrix said dismissively. Ligeia's eyebrows went up, and Ianthe laughed a little.
"Friendly neighbours?" she joked, but Bellatrix was serious as she insisted,
"He's been a great mentor to me since my family died. He's probably just worried whether I'm holding up all right."
"Oh. How kind of him," said Ianthe, and Ligeia sighed as she said,
"I'm going to get a drink. Good to see you, Bellatrix. I'm sorry again for what's happened to you."
Bellatrix finished her drink and set her glass down on the tray of the passing House-Elf. She nodded and told the girls,
"See you back at school, then."
"Right. See you on the Hogwarts Express," Ianthe smiled, and she walked off with Ligeia. Bellatrix was left standing alone, watching as people danced to the Amplified swing music and milled and talked. Suddenly a voice behind her asked,
"Another Lavender Slip-Up?"
Bellatrix turned around to see Tom Riddle standing before her, a firewhisky in one hand and a purple drink in the other. She grinned at him and gratefully took the drink.
"Thank you," she murmured. "Happy birthday."
"Hush," he scolded. "Don't say that so loud."
She smirked up at him, and he asked her,
"How are you holding up?"
"I'm fine," she promised. She reached up and held her locket, and he nodded. Bellatrix thought over the last week since Christmas. They'd kissed and kissed on his sofa that day. They'd kissed every day since. It had never gone beyond kissing, but the kisses had become deeper, more sure, more passionate. Every night, Bellatrix had been tempted to go next door and ask him to go into his bedroom, to take it further. She wanted to escalate things. Did he? She couldn't tell.
Now she sipped at her third drink and stared at him, and he just stared back as the music blared behind him. He opened his mouth and seemed like he was about to say something, and then a voice from beside Bellatrix said over the cacophony,
"Bellatrix! Any chance you're in the mood for dancing?"
She snapped her head to the side to see Rodolphus Lestrange, who was short and squat with acne and messy black hair, standing beside her. He knitted his hands nervously, and Bellatrix's mouth fell open. How could she say no to him right now? She looked helplessly at Mr Riddle, who raised his eyebrows and held out a hand.
"I'll hold your drink," he said, and Bellatrix reluctantly gave over her Lavender Slip-Up. I'll be back, she wanted to promise him. Then she suddenly took her drink, snatching it, and she gulped it down quickly. She took the empty glass with her and murmured to Mr Riddle,
"I'll get rid of it."
He just nodded and said lightly,
"I've got a few people to see. Enjoy yourself."
"Yes." Her stomach ached. She scowled deeply as she and Rodolphus walked up to the bar to get rid of her empty glass. She shouted to Rodolphus, "Want some firewhisky?"
"Bellatrix, you're going to be awfully drunk," he warned her, but Bellatrix defiantly passed her empty glass to the Mulciber boy and ordered herself a tumbler of firewhisky. Then she stood there at the bar and drank it down in four gulps, feeling profoundly ill all of a sudden, and Rodolphus asked her,
"Perhaps you don't feel like dancing, after all?"
"It's fine." Bellatrix slammed her glass down on the bar and stumbled with Rodolphus toward the dance floor. She was a mess, she thought, and people would notice. She wasn't magnificent here like she'd been at the funeral.
On the dance floor, she rocked and swayed with Rodolphus, and within a few minutes, everything was a total blur. The candelabras that had been charmed to shine blue and pink and green seemed to arc and trail across the air. The music was echoing in her mind. Rodolphus' hands were warm on her. She was dizzy as she moved. Finally the song ended, and Rodolphus told her,
"Thanks for dancing with me, Bellatrix. Do you want to keep dancing?"
"I dunno if I can," she admitted, for she was unsteady in her heels now.
"Mr Lestrange?" said a distant voice, and finally Bellatrix recognised it as Mr Riddle's. She turned to see him standing there, so tall, and he said to Rodolphus,
"If you'll allow me to look after her from here."
"Yes, of course, sir," said Rodolphus nervously. He seemed more than willing to pass over care of the drunken Bellatrix to a far more steady adult. Once Rodolphus stepped away, Bellatrix said up to Mr Riddle in a blurry voice,
"Did you come to dance with me?"
"No. I came to take you back to your rooms," he said rather sternly. "If you stay, you're going to make a fool of yourself or get sick or injured. You had four drinks in an hour. I think your party is over."
She wanted to argue with him, but he'd told her to obey him. She was going to follow him. She was going to be part of his movement. She had to do what he said. So she nodded and asked,
"May I walk out on your arm to keep me steady?"
"Of course," he nodded. He extended his arm, and Bellatrix wrapped her hand up around his forearm. She ignored the stares of her fellow Slytherins and the other party guests as she stumbled badly, led out of the ballroom by the constant and proud Tom Riddle. When they were out in the corridor, she mumbled,
"I have no idea how I'm going… going to climb stairs… in heels right now."
Without another word, he brought one arm under her legs and swept her off the ground, making her squeal with surprise as he curled her up into his arms. He cradled her as he hurried over to the winding stone staircase, and as he climbed, Bellatrix mused,
"You're so strong. Happy birthday. Can I say it now?"
"Yes, you can say it now," he replied. Bellatrix reached up to hold his marled face in her palm, and she whispered again,
"Happy birthday. I never did go shopping. Wasn't sure I was meant to."
"I don't need presents," he said as he walked down to the upstairs corridor. He passed his own quarters, and then Bellatrix asked,
"Are you angry with me that I got drunk?"
"No, I'm not angry." Mr Riddle walked up to Bellatrix's chambers and set her down.
"Is she all right?" asked the painting behind them, the mother with the baby, and Bellatrix mumbled,
"I'm fine."
"You'll see yourself inside all right?" Mr Riddle asked, but Bellatrix stared up at him, bleary-eyed, and shrugged helplessly. Why wouldn't he take things further? Why only kisses?He shut his eyes and pinched the bridge of his crooked nose as he said,
"I could never do anything to you now, Bellatrix; you're utterly drunk. It'd be… it isn't the right way, you understand."
"And you must get back to the party," she murmured, opening her door and starting to walk inside. "Thank you for the help."
He followed her into the sitting room.
"People would notice if I were missing with you from the party for too long," he pointed out. "It wouldn't take a genius to figure out what was -"
"I want you," Bellatrix blurted, and Mr Riddle's eyes went wide. He cleared his throat and said quietly,
"When you're sober."
"I leave for school in just a few days," Bellatrix pointed out. "We're running out of time."
His chest heaved quickly, and he asked her carefully,
"Would you be opposed to me unlocking your door and coming in after the party? When you've had some time to… to sober up?"
"No," Bellatrix whispered. "I would not be opposed."
"Very well, then," he nodded, turning to go. "I should get back down there now."
"Sir," called Bellatrix, and he whirled over his shoulder. She swayed where she stood and told him, "Happy birthday."
When she woke in the morning, she wasn't alone.
He was lying in the bed beside her, sleeping on his back, wearing a black tunic and black leggings, and Bellatrix gasped softly as she sat up. She felt positively naked all of a sudden in her thin white nightgown. She reached for her wand and Scoured her mouth, for she had a desire to kiss him when he woke, and when she set her wand down, he stirred.
"Mmm." His eyes blinked open, and he noted in a hoarse voice, "I haven't been Hexed yet."
"Hexed?" asked Bellatrix, her own voice a low growl. Mr Riddle turned his face to look at her, and he smirked.
"Most witches who wake with a wizard twenty-five years their elder beside them in their bed, especially wizards with faces like mine, would be inclined to Hex that wizard. Or worse."
"I am disinclined to Hex you," Bellatrix laughed softly. Then, touching at Mr Riddle's chest, she asked him, "What did people say about me leaving the party?"
"They all understood," he said. "Felt sorry for you. Thought you'd been drinking because of your family. No one's angry or judgmental. Don't worry over it."
"And who did you kiss at midnight?" Bellatrix asked, staring right into his eyes. He dragged his fingers over his mouth, and she realised he was wandlessly Scouring himself.
"Are you jealous?" he asked, and her heart sped up a little. She gulped. The thought of him kissing someone else did make her feel a bit ill… or maybe that was hold over from the liquor. He reached up to brush his knuckles over her cheek, and he informed her,
"I didn't kiss anyone. I'd like to kiss you right now, though."
Bellatrix bent down and began to press her lips to his, eventually incorporating her tongue in a dance with his own. Soon enough their mouths were locked together, and Bellatrix started to feel a familiar wet flush of want between her legs. She pulled her mouth from his and whispered,
"I want you."
"You're a virgin." He rolled them over until she was on her back, and he sat up and started stripping off his black tunic. Bellatrix felt her face flush, and she admitted,
"I am a virgin. What of it?"
"It'll hurt a little. The first time," he told her, and Bellatrix frowned in confusion. She swallowed hard and slithered out of her nightgown, shoving down her cotton knickers, and then Mr Riddle noted in a low voice,
"You… are naked."
"Sorry." Bellatrix licked her lip anxiously, but he pulled the blankets back and began to study her in a way that made her cheeks flush with fire. He squeezed carefully at her small breasts, one at a time. He dragged his thumbs over her peaked nipples. He slid his fingers around her flat stomach. And then he asked her meaningfully,
"Shall I touch you until you come?"
"What?" Bellatrix felt surprise go through her until her ears rang. She gulped hard and finally just nodded. Mr Riddle lay back down beside her and arranged them until they lay like spoons cradled together, with Bellatrix before him. He reached around her and arranged her leg carefully, and then his fingers went to the nub where she always touched herself to drive herself mad.
Bellatrix gasped as his lips touched beneath her ear, as he started to kiss her neck, and he moved his tongue and lips in tandem with the fingers and thumb that he pulsed on the folds and clit below. She moaned at the feel of it, at the delightful way he was caressing her. After awhile, pleasure started to build in her core, a coiling sense of everything being right. She threw her head back, and he caught her mouth in a kiss. Her back arched, and he pressed harder with his hand as he stroked and twisted and curled and pushed.
"Yes." Bellatrix tore her mouth from his. "I'm going to…"
"Do it." Mr Riddle's erection dug hard into the small of Bellatrix's back through his trousers, and she suddenly lost herself. She gasped for air like she was drowning underwater, like she was in some sort of vacuum. She felt herself clenching around him, and for some reason that sensation only aroused her further and didn't serve to embarrass her. She wanted him. She wanted him badly.
"Oh, please show it to me," she heard herself whine. His cock, she meant, and he seemed to understand. She rolled slowly from one side to the other until she was facing him, and she watched him shove his trousers down and push them off his legs, kicking them away and revealing a bit of the male anatomy Bellatrix had never seen in person before.
She had no point of reference, but his seemed awfully big. Thick and throbbing with a purplish tip. It looked like some sort of sea creature, though Bellatrix was drawn to it like a moth to flame. She reached out and tentatively wrapped her fingers around the shaft of it, and Mr Riddle tipped his head back, whispering,
"Oh, I don't know if I can cope with a massage today."
"Why?" Bellatrix pulled her hand away, feeling self-conscious, and he replied,
"Because I'm already staving it off."
"Staving what off?" Bellatrix felt clueless and idiotic, but Mr Riddle was patient as he informed her slowly,
"It was very arousing for me, touching you like that. And it's been… a very long time for me. So I'm already close, you understand."
"Oh." Bellatrix lay on her back and spread her legs, and she whispered, "Well, why don't you go ahead and do it, then?"
He laughed gently and pulled himself up over her, and he frowned. He put his hand to her lower abdomen and incanted,
"Nongravidare Maxima."
"Oh. Right. Thank you," Bellatrix nodded, and he raised his eyebrows. The last thing either of them needed was a bastard to come of this dalliance. Suddenly there was pressure between Bellatrix's legs, and she gasped as that pressure began to fill her. Something was stretching her walls. Mr Riddle's eyes were locked onto hers, and as he pushed into her, Bellatrix squirmed and gasped. Burning, ripping. She squeezed her eyes shut as the bad sensations passed, taken over by a feeling of fullness, a feeling of satisfaction.
"Oh," she breathed. "Feels good now."
He moved gingerly, pumping his hips with slow, steady, rhythmic strokes. Bellatrix let her head fall back, and then she heard Mr Riddle declare,
"I'm sorry; this is not going to be a lengthy endeavour."
"Hmmm?" Bellatrix was lost in it all, lost in the feel of him moving atop her, swaying above her, and then suddenly he stopped moving and buried his face in the crook of her neck.
"Bella," he whispered, and she shivered to hear him use her shortened name.
"Yes." She held onto his hair as he came; she could feel it pumping into her. She pressed his face against her neck and hummed, "Yes."
"Bella." He kissed the skin of her neck and then moved his mouth to hers, and for a very long while, he just kissed her. He kissed her even as he started to go soft and slid out of her body. He kissed her as his come leaked out between them, as she pet his chest and squeezed his shoulders. Finally he broke away and lay on his back beside her on the bed. He panted a little, and Bellatrix just stared at him.
"What time did you come here?" she asked him, knowing she'd been fast asleep less than an hour after he'd brought her up.
"Ten past midnight," he replied. "I knew you'd be sleeping. I…. somehow I knew you wouldn't mind."
Bellatrix imagined him quietly climbing into bed beside her, falling asleep beside her. She shut her eyes and heard her voice against her neck. Bella. She reached up and wrapped her fingers around the locket he'd given her.
"There will be battles," she said, her eyes still shut, "and when there are, I'm going to kill people for you."
She opened her eyes, and Mr Riddle was staring at her like she was the most beautiful thing in all the world. He licked his bottom lip and murmured,
"And what do you think of the Cruciatus Curse, Miss Black?"
Her heart hammered. She curled up half her mouth, imagining the red web of light and the shriek of an enemy. She nodded.
"For you," she told him, "anything."
Suddenly he was breathing quickly through his parted lips, and he asked her seriously,
"Not too sore for Round Two, are you?"
As she got wrapped up in another kiss, Bellatrix thought to herself that she very much did not want to go back to school on the Hogwarts Express in just a few days' time.
Author's Note: WHEW! That was a doozy of a chapter! Sorry; that one kind of ran away from me. But because it was so long, I'd be extra-especially grateful for feedback! Next up, we're going to see how these two handle being apart. Mwah hahaha.
