Autho's Note: Sorry for the huge delay guy's... But I'm trying my best to keep this going as fast as possible. Please continue reviewing and giving me feedback.
Back to Hogwarts
During the entire month between her wedding day and the start of term Lucy didn't leave the Serpent's Lair, her days were mostly the same, she'd wake up late in the morning, and Voldemort would be gone already, she'd take her breakfast on her own and spend some time in the library, or the gardens, sometime she'd even take a flight around the castle's grounds, always being careful to stay within the wards, she'd have lunch on her own as well, for most of the days, and occasionally she'd be joined by Narcisa Malfoy, who she believed had been instructed by Voldemort to keep her company.
Surprisingly enough she enjoyed the woman's company, they'd only talk about trivial things, but it was rather nice. On the afternoon, after Narcisa left, Lucy would sometimes write to her friends, she was pleased to find out that she was allowed to write to whoever she wanted and also to receive their letters back, even if she wasn't allowed to visit any one, nor to bring them here; sometimes while she was writing Nagini would also come and chat with her while she wrote or, sometimes join her for a sun bath on the gardens, the snake was also surprisingly nice.
Dinner was usually the most uncomfortable time of the day, because Voldemort would always join her, when they ate alone it was particularly bad, since his attempts to keep a conversation with Lucy would invariably lead to an argument, which would leave her with a blinding headache caused by his anger towards her. Thankfully they had company most of the nights, mostly members of the council or death eaters, and then Voldemort's attention would be usually focused on talking about business, leaving Lucy in peace to enjoy her dinner calmly and mostly silent.
After dinner Lucy would head to the bedroom on her own, shower and get into bed to sleep, only much later Voldemort would come, after he was done with whatever work he was doing, he'd climb on the bed and wake her, and then he'd claim her again and again, sometimes he'd take her three times on the same night, but always with the utmost gentleness, even more so on the nights they had argued. After he was done, he'd fall asleep with Lucy still secure in his arms, and she'd cry until it was almost dawn again when the exhaustion would make her sleep.
As the first of September approached Lucy decided to bring the matter up on the dinner table, they hadn't yet discussed the start of school, and she feared he had changed his mind about allowing her to go.
"Voldemort…" - She called up causing him to look up. – "I'd like to know how I'll be going to King's Cross tomorrow, will I be taking the floo, or the carriage?" – She asked staring him directly into his eyes, he grinned.
"You won't be going be going to King's Cross tomorrow my beloved." – He said smoothly, and her eyes widened, and her anger flared up, but before she could say anything he continued. – "No… You'll be going directly to Hogwarts the day after, by using this." – He said as he conjured a black velvet box on the thin air and held it up for her.
It was a necklace, a very simple and yet a beautiful one, a simple thin string of white gold that held one ruby, beautifully shaped in the form of a heart. Voldemort took the necklace from the box and stood up to stand behind Lucy.
"This my beloved is a portkey," - he explained as he fixed the necklace on her neck, - "every morning you'll say "Hogwarts" in parseltongue to be taken to the school, and at the end of every day, after your last class you'll say "home" also in parseltongue to come back here and have dinner with me." – He finished placing a kiss on her earlobe before going back to his place on the table. – "It was Severus who came with this wonderful idea; it wouldn't do for us to be parted for longer than necessary don't you think? I'd certainly wouldn't want to sleep away from my beloved wife for so long, and I wouldn't want to keep you away from school either."
Lucy couldn't find her voice to answer, it was a rather good solution indeed, if one didn't consider that she'd love to sleep away from her husband for as long as she could, but she certainly preferred this arrangement than been kept from Hogwarts all together.
And thus, on the first day of class Lucy allowed Tipsy to help her get dressed and to comb her hair before activating the portkey to land rather ungracefully on the ground in the middle of the Entrance Hall. The people there, heading to breakfast, looked startled at her and some started to whisper to one another immediately. Surprisingly it was a Slytherin boy, who she didn't know, that helped her to her feet.
"Are you alright, my lady?" – Another Slytherin boy asked politely.
"Uh… Sure." – She answered feeling rather embarrassed, she wasn't used to Slytherins being nice to her.
Luckily she heard someone screaming her name, and turned gratefully to see Ron and Hermione running towards her.
"Hey Guys!" – She greeted as they hugged her.
"Oh Lucy! How are you? Are you okay?" – Hermione asked looking her over worriedly.
"I'm fine! Haven't you two got my letters?" – She asked raising her eyebrows.
"We have, but we couldn't be one hundred per cent sure that all of it was true, you know Voldemort could have been making you write them or something." – Hermione answered shrugging.
"Oh… Don't worry, it was really me, and I'm really fine." – Lucy answered with a smile.
"Yes you are…" - Said Ron frowning at her. – "Come on, let's eat, I'm starving!" – He exclaimed and started to lead the girls towards the Great Hall.
As they sat down Lucy looked up at head table to see Professor Dumbledore raising a goblet of pumpkin juice towards her and Sirius winking at her. She was surprised though to see that Hagrid wasn't up there, it wasn't hard to miss his huge presence, and instead it was Rabastan Lestange who sat beside Sirius.
"what happened to Hagrid?" – She asked alarmed.
"Oh… He moved to France with Madame Maxime." – Hermione answered. – "And Lestrange will be the Treat of Magical Creatures teacher now."
"And he will also be the flying instructor and our referee. Madam Hooch has retired." – Ron added, glaring up at the head table.
"It seems like she went back to Romania to take care of her Grandchildren. Oh look… The new Werewolf regulation will be full function this week." – Said Hermione, frowning at her copy of the Daily Prophet. –"It's awful."
"Can't believe they'll do that." – Complained Ginny, that was sitting nearby and listened to Hermione's comment.
Lucy frowned.
"Do you guys really think it's bad?" – She asked tentatively causing everyone to look at her startled.
"What do you mean? Of course it's bad! It's You-know-who's stuff!" – Ron said with a scowl.
"Lucy… The Werewolves will all be forced to be registered by the ministry, and their names will be public domain! They'll be treated like some kind of uncontrolled beasts who need to be watched all the time." – Hermione said looking at her like she was crazy.
"Well I know they'll have to registered, but all animagus are registered and nobody seems to think it's a bad thing." – Everyone on the table shot her odd glances. - "What I mean is, they'll all be given the wolfsbane potion, every month, with no charge, and as long they keep getting it on the ministry, they'll be allowed to work anywhere they want, and even their children will be able to come to Hogwarts like everybody else… I mean… Remus life would have been much better if this law existed on his time." – Lucy tried to explain.
The werewolf regulation law was the only thing related to Voldemort's work that she had been interested in, he had been discussing it with Professor Snape, Malfoy and Greyback over dinner one night, and she had been rather surprised to notice it was actually a great idea. That night she had even spoken up to suggest that Lupin would do a great Head for the new department since he had a good relationship with wizards already, and she was even more surprised when Voldemort accepted her idea, even against Greyback's opinion.
"Looking on that side it's truly a nice idea…" - Hermione conceded biting her lip. – "But they can still abuse their power, and use this knowledge to slowly hunt the werewolves down."
"It's always a possibility… But Remus will be the head of the new department, and, I don't think he'd let that happen." – Lucy offered.
"Professor Lupin will be the head of the department? Wow! This might actually work then… He's a great guy, I hadn't believed the papers when they said there would be actual werewolves working on the department of regulation." – Neville, who had been listening to the conversation, piped in.
"Why would Voldemort put Lupin ahead of it though? I thought he'd put some death eater, or perhaps that Greyback." – Ginny commented, and Lucy shrugged.
"I mentioned Lupin's name, and since Professor Snape also thought it was a nice idea…" - She trailed off.
"Yeah… This werewolf regulation thing might look like something nice, but we can't forget that You-know-who is a fucking murderer! I can't believe you're actually taking his side Lucy!" – Ron said looking at her with something akin to disgust.
"I… I didn't forget Ron…" - She whispered feeling like she had just been slapped across the face, had she truly been defending Voldemort?
But before Ron could retort they were interrupted by Professor Mcgonagal who was delivering their schedule, and all possible unpleasant thoughts were washed away as they saw that their first class was DADA, with Sirius. They couldn't wait.
Being back to classes was definitely refreshing to Lucy, even if she counted that they had an absurd amount of homework from both Sirius and Professor Mcgonagal by the time they headed to lunch.
"I can't believe Sirius assigned so many work to us! I thought he was nice!" – Ron grumbled.
"He is a teacher Ron! He is supposed to give us homework!" – Hermione answered rolling her eyes.
And like that Lucy spent her first day of school, and the days that came afterwards. She'd wake up and get dressed and head to the school to have breakfast with her friends, and go to classes, and head back to the Slytherin castle before dinner, then she'd take a bath and head down to eat with Voldemort and whichever guests he had.
After that she'd go to the library, sometimes accompanied by Nagini to do her homework, and only much later she'd go to the bedroom and get to bed, Voldemort would usually come by the same time she did, and as usual, he'd take her as many times as he deemed fit and fall asleep leaving her to cry at her heart content, thankfully she cried for only a few minutes now instead of hours.
Again, it was a rather nice routine for her, even if it was not what she had once expected for her last year at Hogwarts.
