A/N: Yay! More reviews! To celebrate, here's Chapter 7 and I also have Chapter 8 almost done to be posted by the end of today. My goal is to finish the story within the week :) Let me know what you think!
~Sun Dance~
(Voldemort) The rest of August passed in a haze of violent heat and Voldemort's own confused thoughts regarding Bellatrix that fluctuated between anger, fondness and admiration, though always converging back into a frustration that resulted in him ignoring her whenever possible. September began and Harry Potter, according to his Death Eaters, showed no sign of returning to Hogwarts on September 1st despite their long wait outside the house he'd inherited from the Black family. Severus had taken up his new post as Headmaster at the school and muggle-borns were not permitted within the castle walls, this new regime aided by the Carrows, two brother and sister Death Eaters who'd proven themselves loyal enough to do this particular job, but too dimwitted to ever be useful in battle. Voldemort couldn't spend much of his own time focusing on the goings on up at the school, however. For the past couple of months, his thoughts had been occupied by only three things: Sybil Trelawney's prophecies, the Elder Wand, and Bellatrix-her role in it all, her sad eyes when he cast her out of Slytherin's Manor, the way her shoulders shook when he touched her...but he hadn't so much as looked at her in over a month. When she came for Death Eater meetings, he continued to sit her as far away from him as possible, down the end of the table between her sister and Lucius. Thankfully, she'd had enough sense (or fear) not to try to approach him. He apparated away as soon as the meetings ended and if she was asking after him, news of it did not reach him. The prophecy couldn't be about Bellatrix. Madam Rhiannon had told him he needed to find someone who'd die for him, die to save him, but when Bellatrix had supposedly "saved him" he hadn't been in any real danger. Even if he'd been hit by the Auror's curse, he had his horcruxes, so he would have survived even if only just. But Bellatrix didn't know that...and nor did Madam Rhiannon...or did she?...Was something going to happen to the horcruxes that would even the playing field so that only love magic would determine who would win the war? No...all his horcruxes were safe. They had to be. Still...Madam Rhiannon had said specifically that he needed to find the one who would die for him...and Bellatrix hadn't been in real danger of dying at all yet...although whose fault was that? His own, he reminded himself. The prophecy said he had to love and be loved in return...well, Bellatrix might have lusted after him for a long time, she couldn't love him. First of all, he was too old for her. Second of all, he was a formidable Dark Lord. Third of all, he didn't have a nose. Not the type a woman like Bellatrix would ever really fall for unless she was trying for fame or fortune, both of which she already had. Yes, he'd settled himself on the fact that the lover in the prophecy simply could not be Bellatrix, which meant he needed to figure out who it did mean at once. Meanwhile, Bellatrix would be much better served falling for someone, anyone, else. Mulciber. Avery. Dolohov...even Travers or Severus. Wouldn't Severus be a good fit for someone like Bellatrix...He imagined the two of them holing up together somewhere to talk and cry about unrequited sexual desires over too-sweet drinks and he shuddered at the thought. As if on cue, Voldemort heard a knock on the door of the temporary study he used whenever he was at Malfoy Manor, a much easier location for the current visitor to provide him weekly updates on things at Hogwarts and any sign of Harry Potter and company. "In," Voldemort growled. The door clicked open and in strode Severus Snape with Nagini slithering in imperiusly behind him. "Well? News?" "None of note to report, my Lord. The Longbottom boy tried to curse one of the Carrows again, but the incident was handled immediately." "And when they handled it, did they recall my order not to spill pure wizard blood?" "Yes, My Lord." Voldemort tried to focus his thoughts on what Severus was saying...Hogwarts...the War...but what would any of that matter if he was defeated in May? "Severus, I'd like for you talk to me about Lily Evans," he said. "Is this a joke, my Lord?" Voldemort didn't think the question deserved to be entertained with an answer. "I want to know how you were so certain you loved Lily Evans,"he said firmly to show Snape that the matter was not to be avoided. Severus's face paled even more than it usually was. "Are you thinking about the prophecy, My Lord?" "It's difficult to think of anything else. The petals of that old witch's rose are falling quickly, far more quickly than I'd imagined. I doubt it'll even last til May." It was the truth he spoke. Even since the night Bellatrix had found the rose tucked away in his study in the West Wing of his mansion, three more of its petals had fallen. "And you're even sure you need to take a lover by then?" "It's about all I'm sure of right now," Voldemort replied. He rarely showed such uncertainty openly to a Death Eater, but right now he thought Severus Snape to be the only person able to help him. "I spent the afternoon revisiting a particular memory in my Pensieve. I believe you will not need to see its contents to remember the night I'm speaking of." "The night I begged you not to take her life…" He could see Snape was struggling with intense feelings of hatred and loathing for him at the moment. But the night Voldemort killed Lily Evans was one of the only nights he'd shown any compassion that he could recall. He'd given her a chance...asked...nearly begged...for her to step aside so that he could keep his shaky promise to the Death Eater he owed so much already for handing over Trelawney's first prophecy. "She made me feel alive inside," Snape said quietly. "Like anything that could ever be wrong was made right by my merely being near her…" Voldemort certainly did not feel that way around Bellatrix, in fact, it was quite the opposite. He generally found himself concerned about how harmful to their cause her next insane idea was bound to be. In fact, it was the youngest Black sister whose presence ever made him feel even remotely close to assured, if he felt anything at all...could the prophecy be about Narcissa Malfoy? "What else? How else did you know? Was it a sudden realization or more gradual?" "It's not something you can know, my Lord. It's felt with the heart."-
For the second time in his life, Voldemort apparated to a swampy hollow not far from the deceiving raised shack inhabited by an old witch named Rhiannon and her apprentice witch, Misty Day, again, for answers. He understood the prophecy. He understood what he had to do, but he just didn't know how it was possible. All those things Snape had told him happened when one loved someone else...he hadn't felt any of that. He hadn't really felt anything but anger and an absence of anger in all that he could remember of his existence, even before he was reborn in his current form in the graveyard. He flatly refused to allow her to pacify him with children's stories this time...no, she was going to give him answers or he would punish her like he'd punish anyone who proved useless to him.
-
"Oh, it's you. I'll get Madam won't have to wait long this time...she's especially interested in you." Misty Day opened the door the rest of the way and let Voldemort into the same waiting area he'd sat in before and this time, he asked for nothing to drink when he sat down in one of the squashy purple chairs beneath the spiral-topped tent in the center of the room. He wanted to be as alert as he could be. The ceiling that had been bewitched to look like the galaxy the last time he'd visited, showed today, a largely magnified sun that revealed every burning crater, the holes in the smoky red surface. Not long after Misty had disappeared behind the beaded curtain that led to the Madam's study, she reappeared with the older witch at her heels. Voldemort made to get up, but she waved him down. "No, you stay where you are. I'm not expecting anyone else tonight. We can talk out here." Voldemort wondered if Madam Rhiannon preferred to keep their conversation out here in the open this time due to the multiple threats on her life he'd made during his first consultation with her. Or perhaps she just didn't intend to keep him for as long, which he was certainly alright with. Either way, Rhiannon sat down across from him in a gold-backed purple chair and after opening one of the drawers in the coffee table between them, withdrew a few cones of dusty pink incense. She lit these in the stone burner he remembered from before and took a deep breath in of the spicy scent before turning her eyes upward onto Voldemort. Misty Day stood a little ways off and looked unsure of whether or not she should leave the room, but Rhiannon noticed this, too. "Go and get me a love potion, brewed fresh in the normal way, will you please Misty?" she said and Voldemort made a mental note not to drink anything either of them offered him ever again, though he made no sign to either witch that he suspected anything of them. "This prophecy is really throwing you for it, isn't it, Tom?" The older witch smirked behind a sheet of silver and blonde hair casting shadows on the only side of her face that he could see. "Don't you call me by my filthy Muggle father's name again!" "Oh that's right, it's some Lord thing isn't it?"
"Voldemort. Or better yet, don't call me anything at all." "No...I'll call you Voldemort. I like it. Anyway, Voldemort...I think I know your trouble. You mentioned something last time...you said it was my fault you couldn't feel love-you think that the love potion made here that your mother used to seduce your father has prevented you from experiencing a tender emotion like love," she said rather dryly. "I'm certain of it." "I'm not. And besides...Love doesn't have to be tender, Voldemort. Once you accept that, everything will start to come more easily for you." He frowned. This was a very different Rhiannon than he'd encountered on his last visit. That one was lighter, warmer...she told stories, demonstrated her power. This one was talking like her mind was somewhere else. "What do you think you're doing?" He snapped. She'd started rifling through the coffee table drawer again. "I need you to do something if we're going to confirm what I've been thinking given your...background..but to do it, you will need to trust that I have no reason to harm you and that since I charge by the hour, I wouldn't want to harm you...If you want me to help you, you need to drink this." She pulled from the drawer's death a very tiny bottle no larger than her smallest finger, clear with a crystal stopper and containing a liquid the consistency of gel that was very violently blue and not quite transparent, but not quite opaque, either. His first inclination was not to touch the stuff. His second inclination, was what was the worst that could happen? His hesitation did not go unnoticed by Rhiannon, who pulled the crystal stopper out of the bottle and pushed it further in his direction. "Do you want answers or not?" He didn't answer, so she smiled. "Then drink it. All of it at once." Sighing and not quite knowing what had come over him, Voldemort took the little bottle and downed it in one swallow. He instantly regretted his decision...his entire body was convulsing...there was pain...shaking...pain searing like a thousand knives cutting into his body at once-like the cruciatus curse in juice form and then he saw himself as a child…
*Memory #1: Voldemort is six years old. The matron of the orphanage is pacing up and down among the children getting them ready. A young couple is coming today looking to adopt a son. He doesn't know anything about them, yet he's been thinking of nothing but them for two days now. What would they look like? What kind of son did they want? Did they want a son that he could be? He was up all night looking out the window every time he heard voices or a car in the street-what if they arrived in the night? He would be the only boy awake to greet them. When they didn't arrive in the night, Voldemort tried to sleep, afraid of having dark circles under his eyes and looking too ugly to be their son. Now the day is here and Voldemort is running after the children lining up to head out of the Boys' Dormitory and down to the Atrium where the young couple are waiting to meet them. His messy black hair is combed down flat with water and his dark eyes are shining. He's wondering whether or not he should smile or look serious when he meets his potential family. He gets in line behind Georgie, but the matron descends upon him, grabs him roughly by the shoulders and forces him out of line. -"Who would want you, Tom? You're too old." Voldemort is six years old. -"But Georgie's already seven! Please!" -"Ask me again and it'll be the belt." Voldemort is six years old.
*Memory #2 Voldemort is eight years old. He stops getting excited when new families come. He stops smiling. He stops being happy for the other children when they get to leave, because he knows he's going to be here until he's eighteen-"then we'll finally be rid of you-" the matrons remind him every chance they get. They call him the Devil's spawn...but he doesn't even know what it means. Miss Caroline isn't so bad, he reasons. She's the oldest matron in the orphanage and she walks with a cane, but she has never hit any of the children with it...not like the other matrons who hit with anything they can find. Miss Caroline sneaks them sweets. She's the only matron who tells Voldemort he might get adopted some day, even if he can tell by her voice that she doesn't really mean it. -"Miss Caroline, I was wondering if you could tell me about...the Devil…" -"Why do you want to know about something as evil as that, Tom?" -"Because everybody 'cept you calls me Devil's spawn. Why does everybody think that about me?" -"Because you killed your mother." -"I didn't kill my mother. I didn't kill anybody." -"She died on the steps of this orphanage while you were spilling out of her all covered in her blood. You cut yourself out of her and you didn't even cry. That's a sign of evil you know...a baby that can't cry." -"It's not fair. I was a baby!" -"Then why do bad things always seem to happen around you? Impossible things…" Voldemort is angry. Miss Caroline is supposed to be the nice one. The one who doesn't think he's horrible. -"I HATE IT HERE! I HATE ALL OF YOU! I WANT TO RUN AWAY ANYWHERE BUT HERE!" *SMACK* Miss Caroline's cane makes contact and he feels his nose break for the first time. Voldemort is eight years old.
*Memory #3 Voldemort is eleven years old. He has his first visitor, an older man dressed in the weirdest clothes he has ever seen. He is wearing a suit, but it is purple as an eggplant from his bow tie to his the hem of his slacks. This man tells him that there's a reason he's different. There's a reason "bad things, impossible things" always seem to happen when he's angry. This man tells him there's a place for people like him and that his name has been down to go there since he was born. And then Voldemort realizes that this man is probably here to take him to the asylum, where the matrons always tell him he'll end up when he ages out of the orphanage. Only here he is come early, and Voldemort is scared so bad things start to happen like they always do. Voldemort is eleven years old and he can't remember the last time he wasn't angry or scared. But this place...wherever he's going...has to be better than here. The man tells him this new place will be his home, but even he doesn't like Voldemort. Doesn't trust him. No one ever has. Voldemort is eleven years old.
*Memory #4 Voldemort is fifteen years old. He stares down at the body of his father. He has never killed anybody before. He was the boy who never killed anybody...until today. His father is dead because Voldemort killed him. He gave him a chance. He asked what he'd been burning to his whole life-why did you have to hurt my mother? Why didn't you want me? But the man had laughed. Laughed at Voldemort. And now he is dead. He'd always made bad things happen to people who tried to hurt him. Whose laughing now? Maybe all Muggles really are the same. Maybe Voldemort would have been better off dead on the concrete steps with his mother all those years ago. She was a witch, but she died to get away from him. This man couldn't even be that noble. He was like the orphanage matrons, afraid of everything they didn't understand. Yes, all Muggles really are the same. Voldemort is fifteen years old.
*Memory #5 Voldemort is sixteen years old. He has learned how to be charming by now. He knows he can get whatever he wants from those weaker than he is. They pretend to like him, but he knows they're just afraid. Professor Slughorn is afraid of him. He tells Voldemort he's the smartest, most talented student he has ever taught, but Voldemort knows he is afraid. They're all afraid...or, they will be. -"Professor, I was in the library the other night...in the restricted section, and I came across something rather odd about a bit of rare magic...it's called...as I understand it...a Horcrux." Slughorn is standing by the fire and as his grin fades, he looks like he's about to drop his drink. -"I'm not sure what you were reading, Tom...but this is very dark stuff. Very dark indeed." -"Which is...why I came to you." -"A Horcrux is an object in which a person has concealed a piece of their soul...one splits one soul and hides it in an object to be protected if their body is destroyed...In other words, you can never die."
*Memory #6 Voldemort is 22 years old. He is 22 years old and being yelled at by a teenager. The fifteen year old Slytherin girl's is skinny, with matted black hair trailing down her back. -"But why can't I join up with you? I'm just as able any-I've got the best marks in Defense Against the Dark Arts in my year!" -"There's much more to real battle than anything you'd learn in class." -"But you could teach me!" -"And you think I have the time? I need Death Eaters who are already smart enough on their own." -"And you think everyone you've got following you is -smart enough- on their own. Please. Rodolphus Lestrange? Really?" -"Rodolphus Lestrange is of age." -"And I'll be seventeen in two years. C'mon, how useful will it be for you to have someone at Hogwarts recruiting for you?" -"There aren't many -female- Death Eaters...perhaps for good reason…Although I expect we could find -something- for you to do...if you really must help..." -"Oh, don't give me that 'you're a girl' bullshit. I want to fight. I may be young, but I want to be near you. Fighting for you. With you. I'll prove to you that I'll be the strongest and most loyal Death Eater you'll ever have." So that's how Voldemort, creator of five Horcruxes by now, and though young, already the most formidable Dark wizard of all time, finds himself tattooing his Dark Mark on fifteen-year-old Bellatrix Black's left forearm in Abraxas Malfoy's drawing room. He risks a look at her as he moves the needle directly over the bone, but she doesn't flinch-just keeps on biting her lower lip through the pain.
*Memory #7 Voldemort is 43 years old. Tonight, he has a body of his very own again for the first time in thirteen years. Reborn from the venom of the snakes he's always felt inside him. Reborn in a graveyard without a nose and as far as he knows, not a heart, either. Not a normal one anyway. Nobody can break what you don't have. Nobody can laugh at your scars if you don't have them anymore. Now he will go to Azkaban. He will free his most loyal...if she remains so, after all this time. -"Always" says Bellatrix. He hates being around the Dementors. He doesn't feel right inside when he's around them...everything is cold...the cold starts where his heart would be and spreads outward in ripples filling every part of him that it can reach...but then there is Bellatrix and Bellatrix is fire... The physical sensation of Madam Rhiannon's long green fingernails squeezing into the tender flesh of his wrist, finally brought him out of the reverie of torture. He tried to be angry, tried to threaten her, but his lips couldn't form words. "Don't try to talk. Just listen. You can feel emotions. Maybe not anymore...but you could...or you wouldn't be like this now, which means it is possible for you. I'm not going to ask you what you saw. I don't need to. You know what you need to do this time...put aside your brain, put aside what seems logical and feel with the heart that I know you have. Find the one who feels passionately, intensely, with the core of their whole being and ask them what that's like...ask them to teach you...then feel just as passionately, in your own way." He only knew one person who felt with her heart so passionately, intensely, crazily, yet so very surely-Bellatrix Lestrange. But right now he'd never felt more hatred towards her since he'd known her. Fuck Bellatrix Lestrange and her weak notions of love and loyalty. "I've got the love potion, Madam." "Wonderful, Misty. Voldemort...no I'm not going to make you drink it-I want you to smell it. I want to know, but more importantly, I want you to know what it smells like to you." Voldemort couldn't hide that he, too, was curious. He couldn't remember making love potions in Potions class when he was a sixth year. Perhaps it was just too long ago-what had he smelled then? What would he smell now? Could a love potion smell like anything to someone who'd never loved? He leaned his slitted nostrils over the pearly liquid and its pale, spiraling vapors. The first thing he thought of was metal...no, not just any metal. Iron. The taste of iron in his mouth. "What do you smell?" Rhiannon asked impatiently. "Blood." "And?" "The mossy dampness inside a cave." Whether it was the underground caverns of his own home or the cave where he'd hid his locket Horcrux, he was unsure...but he'd always been fond of caves all the same. The mossy smell was a bit like fertilizer with hints of dirt and water that'd been sitting too long. "And?" "Elder wood." This one was more of a guess...well, a thought that came to him suddenly and surely that elder wood was what it was even thought it smelled like any ordinary wood to him-though a bit heavier and muskier, like cedar. "And?" "I can't distinguish...this last," he said frustratedly. There was something there, he knew. Something more than blood and moss and wood...Where had he smelled it before? A pub? Yes, it was a drink...a spicy drink...cinnamon something. "It's a drink, I think. Cinnamon something...but I'm not thinking of the drink, it's more the smell of the drink...with a note of incense?" "Patchouli, maybe?" "Perhaps," he replied. She was looking at him strangely, with a very full-of-herself grin carving out its way on her wrinkled face. "You smelled all those things? Never mind what they mean and never mind how certain you are of the individual scents. The fact that you could smell anything confirmed to me what I thought all along-you are completely capable of love. You just haven't been shown enough of it in your lifetime to know how to recognize it. If you truly couldn't feel it, you wouldn't have smelled anything in the potion at all...now, go about doing with this information whatever it means to you."