Hi, everyone, sorry this took so long. College is very time-consuming :(
Thanks to all those who have read and reviewed so far. I hope you like this chapter :)
The shed, like everything else on the Black Estate, had fallen into dilapidation over the course of years and had then been restored by magic in a matter of minutes for the pureblood party held the week before. The wooden structure sat on the grassy back lawn between the fountain and the gazebo—which was currently in the process of being remodeled by three wands.
The wands waved. The spells cast. The wooden boards of the gazebo separated from their original form, rose towards the setting sun, then reformed into the shape of a small house.
The pointed roof was the same, but now, instead of pillars and open air, there were wooden walls and glassless windows and…no door.
Rodolphus Lestrange, who held one of the three wands constructing the small house, turned to his brother Rabastan Lestrange. "Where's the door, Bas?"
Bas, who held another of the three wands, grimaced. He quickly flicked his wand. Some boards unattached from the small house, creating a doorway.
Rod the flicked his wand. A board transfigured into a door which sailed into the doorway.
Now, Cygnus Black flicked his wand. Glass appeared in the open windows of the small house.
The new guesthouse was complete.
Ingvar Karkaroff was watching from where he stood on the cobblestone path that had once led to the gazebo and now led to the guesthouse. He nodded in appreciation at its completion.
"Thank you." his accented voice said. "It looks like a satisfactory place for my son and I to stay."
Rod, Bas and Cygnus lowered their wands and turned towards him.
None of the four men acknowledged that the reason the Durmstrang professor and his son were to stay outside of the Black Manor in a separate guesthouse had less to do with the lack of space in the large manor and more to do with xenophobia.
"You're welcome." Cygnus returned. "My wife is serving dinner inside. Please join us."
Karkaroff nodded again. He followed Cygnus, Rod and Bas back up the cobblestone pathway, up the hill towards the Black Manor.
They were passing the shed when Rod glanced away from the house ahead, over to his right. He could see three figures approaching the restored shed.
Rod recognized his wife, Bellatrix Lestrange, and the man who called himself the new Dark Lord. But the third figure? It was dressed like a muggle and shuffling as it walked towards the shed.
Furrowing his brow, Rod stopped to watch.
Bella was wearing a black dress again, instead of the gray uniform Karkaroff had transformed all the students' outfits into. Rod was not surprised she had changed, since she had hated the baggy uniform, but Rod suspected something more had happened in between her taking off the gray uniform and putting on a black dress.
Bas stopped, too, when he saw his older brother stop. "What is it, Rod?"
Rod pointed at the shed, turning to face it. Bas turned to face it, too, also furrowing his brow in confusion.
As they walked, Cygnus and Karkaroff glanced back at the halted brothers, and then at what the brothers were staring at. The shed and three figures. The older men grimaced in disgust at the sight of Bella, though for different reasons.
Rod knew why Karkaroff did not like Bella, she had disrupted his lesson earlier that afternoon and attacked him. But why Cygnus was angry with his daughter, Rod did not know (though he could guess it was probably due to the man she was standing next to at the moment).
Cygnus and Karkaroff looked away ad continued their trek back up the cobblestone path to the manor.
Rod and Bas remained, watching the shed and the three figures.
"What're they doing?" Bas wondered, scratching his brown hair, "Who's that other person they're with?"
Rod did not respond and just continued to stare. He narrowed his green eyes, attempting to magnify his distance vision.
Bella opened the door to the shed. Lord Voldemort waved his wand. The third figure shuffled into the shed. Bella closed the door and waved her wand to lock it.
"They've captured someone." Bas inferred, "But who? Why?"
"Knowing Bella it's probably just a random muggle to torture for fun." Rod muttered. The shuffling did not look like a normal muggle, but maybe that was because Bella had already tortured the muggle out of its humanity.
Did it bother him, the kind of person his wife was? He was so used to it he hardly noticed anymore. (But he had screamed when she had shown him her collection of dead birds when they were eleven.) Her infidelity upset him more than her other hobbies.
"Let's go back inside and eat dinner." Rod continued, already looking away, "There's nothing to see here."
Bas shrugged. "Alright."
He and his older brother returned to their original journey up the cobblestone path towards the manor on the hill.
The table in the diningroom of the Black Manor had been elongated and divided into two tables in order to accommodate the ten male students in Dark Arts training and their foreign professor, the two female students who had been prevented from participation (one of whom who was not at the table), two more young women who were here with their husbands, as well as the usual occupants of the house, their visiting former classmate, the new Dark Lord (who was not at the table), and his two friends.
So, the dimly-lit diningroom was crowded that evening.
Regulus Black sat at what was basically the 'kids table' between blond Evan Rosier, polite enough to eat his Aunt Druella's burned cooking, and sullen Sirius Black, picking at the food on his plate with a fork instead of eating it, and ignoring the table's conversation. Across from Regulus sat Mordred Mulciber, Alvin Avery, and Amycus and Alecto Carrow.
Igor Karkaroff, who was indeed the son of their new professor, sat on the other side of Evan, eating quickly and quietly, and also not joining the table's conversation. Some stray crumbs stuck to his straggly teenage facial hair and the shirt of his black uniform.
"What was your cousin Bellatrix so mad about earlier?" Alvin wondered aloud as he ignored the vegetables on his plate.
Both Regulus and Evan shrugged. Sirius did not even glance up from his picked-at but uneaten meal.
"Women are hot when they're angry." Mordred commented. "Your cousin especially."
Regulus's dark eyes glared at him from across the table. This just caused Mordred to chuckle as he took a bite of chicken.
"I don't like her." Alecto grumbled, cutting the chicken on her plate with a knife and fork, "Because of her ratting me out, I had to spend the whole afternoon inside. There's nothing to do here, we're in the middle of nowhere."
Her brother Amycus nodded his brown-haired head sympathetically. "Yeah, she didn't need to tell the professor that you're a girl."
"You're barely a girl anyway." Mordred snickered under his breath at the short-haired redhead.
The knives of the Carrow siblings were quickly pointed at him until he apologized.
Regulus rolled his eyes at this, then looked past the teenagers sitting in front of him, over at the 'grownup table'.
Lucius Malfoy, his wife Narcissa, Tye Nott, his wife Theodora, and that Russian Antonin Dolohov sat eating. The two women were chatting with each other, as were Nott and Dolohov, but Lucius was quiet.
The five looked up from their dinner and conversation when four figures stood in the diningroom doorway, just arrived from the backyard of the manor. Uncle Cygnus, Professor Karkaroff, and Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange. They took seats at the 'grownup table'.
Igor Karkaroff immediately set down his utensils with a clink onto his now empty plate. Without a word to the teenagers in gray uniforms, he stood up from the 'kids table' and crossed the diningroom to sit with his father at the 'grownup table'. Professor Karkaroff's only acknowledgement of his son was a quick glance when the boy sat down next to him at the other table.
Regulus noticed that Sirius had finally looked up from his plate and was watching this interaction between parent and child.
"He'll never get his approval." Sirius muttered, "They've only been here a day and I can see that. Poor kid should stop trying."
Kid? Regulus almost snorted. Sirius was younger than Igor, who could grow a miniature goatee when neither Black brother, nor anyone else at the 'kids table' could grow any facial hair at all.
Still, Regulus knew his older brother was really referring to his own forsaken attempts to get their parents' approval. Sirius had learned early on that Regulus was and always would be the favorite son, and he had given up trying to change that the moment he was sorted into Gryffindor House at Hogwarts.
Sirius returned to picking at the chicken and vegetables, staring down again at the plate on the table in front of him. Regulus glanced down at his almost-finished food, too, but did not pick up his fork.
Dirty-blond Mordred, brown-haired Alvin and golden-blond Evan were having a conversation he was not paying attention to. So were the Carrow siblings. Instead, he was listening to the conversation at the 'grownup table'.
"So the Dark Arts are taught as a class at Durmstrang?" Lucius Malfoy checked. It was odd to see him wearing the same gray uniform as everyone else. All the purebloods knew that the Malfoys liked to distinguish themselves by wearing white.
Professor Karkaroff and his son seated next to him both nodded their goateed heads.
"Several classes, actually." Professor Karkaroff specified.
"If I ever have a son I might send him there, then." Lucius considered from where he sat between Professor Karkaroff and his wife Narcissa.
Narcissa Malfoy's blue eyes widened. "All the way to Durmstrang?! We will not."
She was sitting next to brunette Theodora Nott, who sat across from her older, bald husband Tye Nott.
"It can't be that far away." Lucius dismissed, glancing at his wife and then turning back to Karkaroff, "Where is it?"
"I am not allowed to divulge the school's location to anyone." Karkaroff stated. "Durmstrang policy."
"And is it 'Durmstrang policy' for professors to sleep with their students?" Rodolphus questioned from across the table. He was seated next to his brother Rabastan, who sat next to Uncle Cygnus, who sat next to Tye Nott and Antonin Dolohov.
"Excuse me?" Karkaroff sniffed in offense.
"The 'Dark Lord' used to teach at Durmstrang, didn't he?" Rodolphus recalled, "That's what my wife told me."
Uncle Cygnus' dark eyes widened in alarm, then narrowed in anger at his son-in-law. Lucius' silver blond eyebrow rose in interest.
Regulus did not understand why either of them reacted to Rodolphus' comment in those different ways. Probably just because Rodolphus had brought up an inappropriate conversation topic for the dinner table.
Rodolphus said no more on the subject. He looked down at his full plate of chicken and vegetables, which had become lukewarm while he was outside with his brother, father-in-law, and foreign professor.
Regulus did not understand why Rodolphus had made such a comment in the first place, either. Just to be rude, maybe? No wonder Bella was sleeping separately from her husband.
Regulus did not know Rodolphus all that much, and had never liked him all that much, either. Especially since, as Bella's husband, Rodolphus took much of Regulus' favorite cousin's attention away from him—of course, now the new Dark Lord was the one occupying her attention, though in a different way than her husband did.
Where were Bella and the Dark Lord now? Surely, he was not still punishing her for fighting Professor Karkaroff, was he? It had been a few hours now.
Regulus had been distracted the remainer of the lesson, after the Dark Lord had led his cousin Bella away. After the Dark Lord had given an order and Bella had actually obeyed. Regulus hoped Bella was okay…
A door creaking opening then shutting brought Regulus out of his thoughts. He glanced behind him at the source of the sound. The doorway to the diningroom was empty, but Regulus could hear footsteps further down the hall.
They were the light footsteps of a woman. And since the only other woman who was not in the diningroom was Aunt Druella, and she was in the kitchen, the footsteps had to belong to Bella.
Regulus stood up.
"Where are you going?" Sirius asked. His tone of voice was snark, but his gray eyes pleaded for his younger brother not to leave him alone at the table with Mordred, Alvin, Evan and the Carrow siblings.
"Toilet." Regulus lied, pushing in his chair, and starting away from the table.
Sirius could handle the Slytherins for a few minutes. Regulus had to talk to Bella. He had to make sure she was alright.
Regulus found Bella starting up the spiraling stairs from the dimly-lit foyer. He called out her name and she stopped, spinning on her black boots to face him.
"Hey, Reggie." She greeted. She forgot to smile for a second, but quickly remembered.
She was no longer wearing the gray uniform. She was wearing a different black dress, less revealing than the one she had worn while arriving late to Professor Karkaroff's lesson.
She looked nice. Long hair out. Red lips smiling. She certainly did not look like a student who had been punished.
Still, Bella seemed almost sad about something, though she was trying not to show it. Whatever it was she was sad about, though, Regulus had no guess.
Regulus crossed the hardwood floor of the foyer to the stairs where Bella stood. From the second to the bottom step she stood upon, she was taller than him again, like she had always been before, until his very recent growth-spurt.
Regulus gazed up at her. "You were gone all afternoon. Where did you go? What happened? What did the Dark Lord do? Was he angry at you?"
Bella chuckled. "Slow down, Reggie. He wasn't angry. We just…talked. Then we went out and he taught me something new. Well, tried to, anyway."
"What did he teach you?" Regulus inquired, dark eyebrows raised in curiosity.
"It's a secret." Bella grinned, halfheartedly.
Regulus grimaced. He then scanned the foyer around them before looking back at his older cousin. "Where is the Dark Lord now?"
"Taking his pet snake for a walk." Bella informed.
Regulus furrowed his forehead in confusion. "Really?" Maybe Bella was making a joke.
Bella nodded. "Yes. I know. It's funny, isn't it? And it's huge, the snake. Have you seen it?"
"…no, I haven't…" Regulus shook his head, short dark hair shaking, too. He glanced around the foyer again, nervous at the fact that there was apparently a giant snake living on the property he was staying at for the summer.
"Don't worry, Reggie, I won't let it eat you." Bella smirked at his nervousness, then adding, "…unless you deserve it."
Regulus knew she was joking, of course. Still, his face turned a little pink in embarrassment because he had shown fear in front of her. He glanced down at his shoes.
Suddenly, there was a hand tussling his hair.
Bella had taken advantage of the height provided her by the stairs to mess up her cousin's dark mop like she use to when he was younger.
It felt different to Regulus this time, though, even though it was the exact same gesture by the exact same fingers in the exact same hair as before. It made Regulus' body tense and his face turn even pinker.
Still, he was disappointed when it stopped. He looked back up at Bella.
"Why'd you attack Professor Karkaroff earlier, Bella?" he asked.
Bella's grin was gone, replaced by a grimace. "I was just mad that he didn't let me participate in the training."
Regulus nodded, accepting the answer. "Yeah, that really wasn't fair. But you're being trained by the Dark Lord himself, anyway, so you couldn't have been that upset about it, could you? And can't the Dark Lord just order Professor Karkaroff to teach you or something?"
"I suppose he could, but he must have his reasons not to." Bella shrugged, "Besides, I don't want to learn from that foreigner anyway." She crossed her arms.
That sounded a little like 'sour grapes' to Regulus, but he did not say so. Instead, he said "The Dark Lord must be really powerful. You did what he told you to, I've never seen you listen to anyone else that way, even your own parents. He seems kind of…scary, especially with those red eyes. Are you afraid of him?"
Bella laughed again. "Oh, Reggie, have you ever known me to be afraid of anyone? Anything?"
Regulus grimaced again. Of course his cousin was not afraid and now he looked stupid and afraid himself for even asking.
"Can I meet him?" Regulus asked, half because he was genuinely interesting in meeting the man who called himself the new Dark Lord and who was able to give Bellatrix Lestrange orders, and half because he wanted Bella to know he was brave enough to.
Bella hmmed. "Well, he's very busy, lots of important things to do—including teaching me, of course. But I'll ask him, for you, Reggie, only because you're my favorite cousin."
She smiled again. And there was her hand tussling Regulus' hair again, petting him like she would pet a puppy.
Bella still must have seen him as a little boy, Regulus reminded himself, a little puppy to be petted and played with. But he did not feel like a little boy anymore.
"Thanks, Bella." Regulus smiled back, not only for her agreeing to ask the Dark Lord to meet him, but also for the hand in his dark hair.
Rodolphus ate quickly, leaving his younger brother and the others in the diningroom to climb the spiraling Black Manor stairs up to the third floor. Instead of entering the bedroom that had once been the childhood bedroom of Andromeda Black and was now a makeshift dormitory for the Dark Arts students, he veered towards his wife Bella's childhood bedroom.
He did not knock before entering. Bella was his wife, after all. He just turned the knob and pushed open the door.
Thankfully, Bella was alone. She was standing in front of the full-size mirror between the dresser, its drawers open to reveal black clothing that had been rifled through earlier in search of an outfit, and her bookshelf of creepy dolls instead of books.
She did not turn to face Rod when she heard him come in. Instead, her reflection's dark eyes met the green eyes of her husband.
"Oh, hello, Rod." She said. Her voice attempted to sound neutral but instead sounded smug.
Rod had been ignoring Bella these past few days and now he was once again at her door. She never came to him first after a fight. He was always the one to attempt diplomacy.
Rod glanced away from her reflection and her back, long dark hair flowing down it. He looked over at her twin-size bed, its covers messy, confirming his suspicions about the so-called 'punishment' Bella had received from the so-called Dark Lord.
"Hoping for someone else?" Rod returned, remaining in the open doorway.
Bella's reflection rolled her eyes.
Why was Bella staring at herself in the mirror, anyway? She had always been vain, but even she usually did not waste more than a few minutes admiring her own image.
And, this did not look like admiration. The expression on Bella's pretty face looked more like dissatisfaction. She was dissatisfied with herself…but why?
"How do you think I'll look when I'm old?" Bella wondered aloud, "Hopefully not like my mother. But if I do, will you still find me beautiful with wrinkles on my face?"
Rod raised a brown eyebrow in confusion. "…uh, why do you ask?" He did not answer her question because he did not want to give the answer she did not want.
"No reason." Bella shrugged, then changing the subject, "How was the lesson today?"
"Before or after you interrupted it?" Rod sniffed, "What was that about, Bella?"
"Nothing." Bella dismissed.
Now she was the one to glance away. Her reflection's eyes looked down at her boots, her eyes looking down at her reflection's boots.
"Oh, it was something, Bella." Rod countered, "And I think I know what it is. Your parents confronted you, didn't they? They don't like it that you're sleeping with a man who's not your husband, who's twice your age, who's not a pureblood."
Now Bella turned around to face him. Her dark eyes glared a warning.
Rod could tell by the disturbed and angered look on her face that his guess was correct.
"Did my parents tell you that?" Bella asked.
"They didn't have to." Rod responded, "I can just tell. I'm your husband. We've known each other half our lives. Don't forget that."
"You mean don't forget you." Bella corrected. Yes, he knew her well, but she knew him well, too.
"You'll get bored of him." Rod predicted, "He might be the 'Dark Lord' but you'll get bored. You always do." ...and when she did, she would come back to him. She always did (though she never admitted it).
Rodolphus was the only man Bellatrix had not lost complete interest in after a few months, like a child playing with different new toys each day but sleeping with the same old teddybear each night.
"He's different than the others." Bella countered, "Different than you."
She said this matter-of-factly, as far as Rod could tell. She was not even trying to make her words hurt her husband, just state what she objectively believed to be true.
"Then he'll get bored of you." Rod amended.
This statement Bella's eyes to widen for just the briefest moment, as if she had never even considered the possibility that any man would ever get bored of her. Typical Bella.
Rod continued, "So I don't care that you're sleeping with him."
That was a lie, of course. But Rod did not want Bella to know that her infidelity bothered him as much as it did. Because, if she knew, it might just motivate her to be even more unfaithful to him, the contrary person that she was.
Sure, Rod had affairs, too. But they were only failed attempts at revenge against Bella for hers, and most recently, to produce an heir when Rod realized that Bella would not change her mind about spurning motherhood.
"Yes you do." Bella dismissed. She knew the truth as well as he did.
"I've never cared about any of your affairs, before or after we got married." Rod insisted, anyway, "I just care that you lied about it. You told me you weren't and you were—"
"I wasn't!" Bella interrupted again, "When I told you I wasn't sleeping with the Dark Lord I was telling the truth. It wasn't until after you saw him kiss me that we did. And today was only the second time."
Rod blinked his green eyes in surprise. "Really?"
"I wouldn't bother to lie, you know that, Rod." Bella assured, "I've never lied to you before. After all, we're married, we shouldn't have secrets, should we?" She was smirking but there was some hidden sincerity in her tone and her words.
It had always been this way between them. Bella would have her affairs, but she would come home to her husband and tell him all about them. Not to gloat and make him jealous—at least not entirely—but just the way she would have told her female friends (if she had any).
Rod nodded. "No, we shouldn't."
Bella's smirk widened. "So what else do you want to know, Roddy? Which one of you is bigger? Better in bed? Lasts the longest?"
Rod was the one rolling his eyes now. "Maybe you should keep some secrets."
Bella laughed and turned away from him, back towards the mirror. Though her reflection still glanced at him occasionally, Bella once again focused on her image, her smile fading back into dissatisfaction again.
Rod stared at Bella's reflection in the mirror, too. He could not look away.
Bella was beautiful, that was undeniable and unignorable.
If she was not, he would not have married her and remained married to her. If she was not, he would not tolerate her affairs. If she was not, he would not love her despite everything—the infidelity, the cruelty, the borderline insanity (there was no other word to describe the edge Bella teetered on).
A beautiful woman could get away with anything.
Bella knew this. It had been one of the first things she had learned upon entering puberty and Rod had watched her learn it, practice it, master it. And Rod saw right through it and fell victim to it, anyway.
"Do you ever wonder what it would be like to be dead?" Bella mused, more to her own reflection than to her husband, "To die?"
"It's something I try not to think about." Rod replied, "But I don't think it would be like anything. It would be a total absence of anything. Feeling, thinking, being…"
Bella's sudden interest in the subject surprised Rod. She had never been the most philosophical person. And despite her love of causing death (and not just to animals, anymore, like when they were at Hogwarts), she never considered being dead herself—at least not that Rod knew of.
"If death is just nothing, then why is it so scary?" Bella asked, more quietly. She was fully asking her own reflection, now, probably forgetting her husband was right there.
And so Rod did not bother to answer. He stood in the doorway watching Bella and her reflection have their conversation.
"What was that…thing you put in the shed?" Rod finally questioned, after a few quiet moments, "It looked like a muggle but it wasn't, was it?"
Bella's reflection just stared at him. The look in her dark eyes told him to leave her alone.
The adolescent stag had not yet grown full size antlers. Despite this, he dared to challenge the adult stag with larger and more powerful horns.
They eyed each other from across the clearing in the woods, bowed their heads as if in respect, and then rushed, heads first, across the flattened dead leaves and dead grass, partially-formed antlers crashing into each other.
Maybe there were doe watching from between the brown trunks of the surrounding trees, maybe not. Either way, it was their instinct to compete.
The sun set into the dark blue sky behind the canopy of green leaves above. It was twilight, the time the deer came out of to forage, safe from humans and predators.
…or not.
There were eyes watching from between the brown trunks of the surrounding trees. But they did not belong to fellow deer.
The older and the younger stag, so distracted by their competition, did not notice they were being watched until it was too late. There was no victor in their fight, a green blast of light hit them both and they fell. Defeated by the third, more powerful creature.
A human.
Well, sort of. The man once was fully human but not anymore. His skin had turned white and his eyes had turned red.
But was he less than human, now? Or more than?
More than, of course. Lord Voldemort decided as he stepped into the clearing in the small woods beside the overgrown cornfield.
Nagini, the large snake, followed, slithering across the dead leaves and grass, towards the two stag corpses, more quickly than Voldemort walked. She did not wait for his signal to lunge at the smaller, mouth open.
She swallowed the smaller deer first, adolescent antlers and all.
It was magic how quickly she could consume, swallow and digest the animal. While regular snakes took hours to swallow prey whole and then months to digest, Nagini devoured the deer in seconds and would be hungry again in minutes, room in her stomach for the next deer, which would be dissolved along with the other by the next day. She ate like a mammal.
Nagini then turned towards the adult stag, opening her mouth again. But before she could swallow that one too, she was interrupted.
"Wait." Voldemort said in parseltongue.
Nagini closed her mouth, stopping in front of the remaining dead stag. She glanced over at Voldemort and saw him raise his wand.
A cut of meat from the deer sliced off of its leg. It rose and floated through the night air towards Voldemort.
He ate it raw.
Nagini would have blinked in shock if she had eyelids.
Voldemort saw the snake's surprise. He waited until he had chewed and swallowed before explaining. "I haven't been able to eat like a human being in years. I can only eat food raw now and only a few times a month."
"You eat like a reptile." Nagini commented.
Voldemort scowled.
Reptiles were animals. He was not an animal. He was more than an animal, more than a human. More than a muggle and even more than a wizard. He was a god…
...Almost. Perhaps, if he made another horcrux, it would remove his need to eat completely and finalize the ascendance.
"Do they know?" Nagini asked. She meant the purebloods back at the Black Manor.
"Of course not." Voldemort dismissed, "They wouldn't understand."
Still, at least one of them would eventually notice he never ate and get suspicious as to why. Bella was already starting to wonder.
"And if one of them follows you and sees you?" Nagini followed-up.
"I would erase their memory." Voldemort replied.
"Even the woman?" Nagini checked. She meant Bella.
Nagini knew Bella's name, but would not say it. Nagini had earlier expressed her disapproval at the pureblood witch debasing herself with a halfblood and reminded Voldemort exactly what his ancestor Salazar Slytherin would have thought about that.
"Especially her." Voldemort confirmed. The last thing he wanted was for Bella to see him killing a deer and eating its raw flesh in the woods at night. She was a strange young woman but even she would probably be disturbed by that.
Voldemort had to keep Bella loyal to him. It was why he was debasing himself with her.
There was no one else Voldemort could trust in the pureblood community at the moment. Cygnus and Druella Black wanted him off their property and away from their daughter, Abraxas Malfoy was mostly likely plotting to doublecross him to further his political career, and the Lestrange brothers only acquiesced to his leadership because their father had coerced them to as a ploy against Abraxas Malfoy.
Bella was the only one who followed him simply because she believed in him and his mission of Pureblood Supremacy (and also because she was attracted to him).
She was his sole entry to Pureblood Society and the one person to take him and his mission seriously at this point in time. And so, he had to accommodate her desire.
…but as soon as Voldemort was able to gain favor for himself and his cause from the purebloods as a whole, he would no longer have to.
Bella would resist this, of course, but she would have to accept it if she wanted to continue learning the Dark Arts from him and eventually become a soldier for the cause of Pureblood Supremacy. She would have to seek comfort with her husband or any one of the men pining after her (who she did not want simply because they did that).
Voldemort turned away from the live snake and the dead deer.
"You can finish the rest." He said as he walked away, back towards the small woods, the cornfield and the Black Manor.
Nagini opened her mouth wide and lunged towards the larger stag, swallowing it whole.
The next morning the male students in gray uniforms (and Igor in black) lined up on the grass of the Black Manor's backyard again. But this time there were two different lines. The lines faced each other; one set of students with their backs to the man, the other set of students with their backs to the guesthouse.
The sun was rising now but most of the sky was still dark. It was early, the air was chilly and only the Karkaroff father and son were not yawning and goosebumped
Black-uniformed Professor Karkaroff stood at the front of both lines of boys, hands and wand clasped behind his back, like schoolmaster with a ruler or a military general with a baton. "Yesterday you learned three new spells of martial magic. Brydda, the stabbing spell, Skera, the cutting spell, and Hrata, the tripping spell. Today you will apply them. In battle against each other."
The students tensed.
Regulus stood between Sirius and Evan, across from Alvin. He and Alvin locked widened eyes nervously, guessing that they would soon have to fight each other.
Sirius and Mordred, facing each other, were already drawing their wands with clenched fists, glaring and grinning in anticipation at the same time.
Evan faced Igor. Evan flipped his shaggy blond hair out of his blue eyes while Igor scratched at his scraggly goatee.
Rodolphus faced Amycus—which really was not fair, in Regulus' opinion. Rodolphus was as old as Bella was, twenty-five, and Amycus was only sixteen. This further proved to Regulus that Bella deserved a better husband than Rodolphus (even though Professor Karkaroff had told them all where to stand in line).
Rodolphus' brother Rabastan faced Lucius. Neither of them looked pleased at the prospect of fighting each other, or anyone for that matter.
Their facial expressions matched the nervous ones on Regulus' and Alvin's faces.
Alvin's hand shot up towards the blue and orange sky. "Professor Karkaroff? How is this safe?"
Professor Karkaroff eyed him. "War is not 'safe' and war is what I am preparing you for. Still, none of you are skilled enough yet to seriously harm one another. And, if anyone is injured, we have young women here to practice their healing spells. Healing is the only place for a woman on the battlefield."
He gestured with his free hand at stone fountain, its bird of prey spraying water from its beak like a dragon breathing fire.
There Narcissa, Theodora and Alecto stood. A blonde, a brunette and a redhead.
Their outfits had been turned into gray uniforms, too—but with skirts instead of trousers. This clearly bothered Alecto much more than the other two, as she was constantly adjusting it in discomfort.
Regulus glanced at the young women. He had never seen tomboy Alecto Carrow wear a skirt before. Regulus then glanced over at Amycus, who looked just as surprised as the others to see his own sister in a skirt—and just as disgusted by it as she was.
Regulus wished Bella was here. He did not think she had any skill with healing spells, as far as he knew, but if she would be able to protect him from getting hurt in the first place.
But then, Regulus thought, maybe he did not want Bella protecting him like he was a little kid anymore. And, maybe if he defeated someone else in a duel Bella would be proud of him, and see him as a man.
Again, Regulus wished Bella was here.
He glanced over at the Black Manor. First, at the third floor, even though Bella did not have a window overlooking the back lawn. Then, at the second floor. The curtain was drawn in the window that the new Dark Lord had looked out of yesterday.
Sighing, Regulus looked back at Alvin and drew his wand. Alvin lowered his raised hand and drew his wand. They nodded at each other in understanding and acceptance.
"Begin." Professor Karkaroff said.
The sun had completely risen by the time five of the ten gray-uniform students lay on the grass lawn in pain and defeat. Their uniforms and bodies were sliced, stained with dirt and blood. Kneeling beside them were the gray-uniformed girls and their healing spells.
Alecto crouched beside her brother Amycus in an unladylike manner that showed that she did not know (or care) how to sit properly in a skirt, and so showed her underwear. She was tracing her wand over the cuts on Amycus' chest while he winced in pain.
She was not good at healing spells. She was a fighter not a nurse.
Alecto and Amycus both glared over at Rodolphus Lestrange who was healing his brother Rabastan, who had lost to Lucius Malfoy. Rodolphus' back was turned so he did not see the Carrow siblings' glares.
Rodolphus was slightly better at healing spells than Alecto. Rabastan groaned more from exhaustion than pain as a stab wound in his arm closed, the puncture remaining in the gray fabric of the uniform.
Lucius glanced at his defeated opponent with haughty silver eyes, before turning his silverblond head to watch his wife, Narcissa, who was healing her cousin Evan Rosier.
Narcissa and Evan had the same golden blond hair. But Evan's shaggy hair had been sliced by a spell, now it no longer fell over his eyes.
"Make it grow back first." Evan requested, sprawled on the grass, looking up at his older cousin and the cloudy sky, "Before you do anything else, make my hair grow back."
Narcissa eyed the bleeding stabs and cuts in her younger cousin that he was ignoring in favor of his hair. She then looked up at his face, contorted in pain but pleading for his poor blond locks.
Sighing, Narcissa flicked her wand.
Evan's hair grew back to its original boyband style. He grinned. "Thanks."
Narcissa rolled her blue eyes before waving her wand over the stabs and cuts actually harming him. She had only fixed his hair first because she knew that her husband Lucius would have probably made the exact same request had his blond hair been damaged.
Lucius nodded in approval as he watched. Igor Karkaroff, the sole student in a black uniform, also watched the student in the gray uniform he had defeated get healed.
Every so often he would glance over at their professor Ingvar Karkaroff, who was watching all the students from afar, for any sign of congratulation from his father that he had won the duel. There was none. Professor Karkaroff was stone-faced as usual.
His cold eyes glanced at his son, briefly, before looking over at Alvin Avery and Mordred Mulciber, who lay on the mud and grass of the backyard.
Theodora Nott was healing an unconscious Mordred, who was far more injured than Alvin.
Of all the students, Sirius Black had been the only one not to go easy on his opponent.
Karkaroff appreciated that.
Regulus Black did not. Mordred was a fellow Slytherin classmate and a friend. Regulus did not like how much his older brother Sirius had harmed Mordred, who had passed out from pain.
It was one thing for Sirius and his Gryffindor friends to have an ongoing rivalry against Mordred and his Slytherin friends, to shoot harmless jinxes at each other or play harmless pranks on one another in the hallways of Hogwarts. It was another thing entirely to practically kill someone.
Regulus' dark eyes glared at Sirius, who stood smirking down at the unconscious Mordred. Alvin, who Regulus had defeated (without seriously injuring), also glared at Sirius from where he lay on the grass, waiting for Theodora to heal his minor wounds after Mordred was safe.
Regulus kneeled beside Alvin, trying his best to help his other friend, though not well because he was no healer, either, and did not have the talent for it.
"Your brother's crazy." Alvin spat, turning his brown-haired head to look at Regulus kneeling beside him.
"I know." Regulus agreed, still glaring at the smirking and standing Sirius.
Sirius finally noticed Regulus' glare. The dark-haired boy turned gray eyes towards his younger brother.
"What?" he snapped.
Regulus just looked away, over at the bleeding body of Mordred Mulciber. The stabs and cuts slowly stopped bleeding and closed as Theodora waved her wand over them.
The sad, scared and accusing look on Regulus' face made Sirius tense. He looked at Mordred again, then down at his shoes, finally regretting what he had done.
Voldemort, Bella, and the muggle inferi had returned to the patch of flattened tallgrass and cornstalks in the overgrown field that stretched for miles between the Black Manor and the small muggle village, just like the gray sky stretched for miles above. It was almost noon.
"Why are we out here, anyway?" Bella complained, "I'm still scared of dying, nothing's changed. There's no point in this."
Her tone of voice was bitter and worse, lacking respect. She did not even say 'my lord'. This bothered Voldemort.
Bella should not be talking to him like she talked to her husband, parents and everyone else. Had she already forgotten who he was and who he would be? Did she think that because she had slept with him that she knew him and could treat him like all the other men she had slept with? Or was she just in a sour mood about being unable to create inferi herself and taking it out on whoever was available?
Whatever it was, she would have already been punished for if this were decades ago, Durmstrang where all the students feared their Professor Marvolo or Hogwarts where all the Slytherins feared their fellow student Tom Riddle. But this was 1977 where Voldemort was still a halfblood stranger in a community of purebloods.
"So why bother with the inferi?" Bella continued, kicking at a dried and dead fallen cornstalk, "If I kill it, I won't be able to revive it. I can't do necromancy as long as I'm afraid of death."
She eyed the zombie-like creature with scorn, as if blaming instead of herself for her inability to raise it from the dead. It had been Voldemort who had created the inferi that they had locked in the shed, yesterday, and brought out again now.
The inferi looked almost the same as it did the day before, but had gotten slightly skinnier and more shriveled, its muggle clothing baggy (which it soon would no longer need). It would take weeks for the inferi's body to become a skeleton covered only by a thin layer of dull gray skin, and its face to dissolve into a featureless skull covered by the same mask of dull gray.
Voldemort knew this. He had seen it happen before and he had made it happen before, back when he was learning dark magic from Idis Edda in Northern Europe.
"You're not reviving it." Voldemort said, "You're battling it."
"That should be easy." Bella scoffed.
Indeed, the muggle inferi looked docile and weak, its empty eyes staring at nothing and its body hanging limp, barely standing. But that would change.
Voldemort smirked at Bella's comment before lifting his wand.
Suddenly, the inferi sprung towards Bella with speed and strength something of its size should have been incapable of. Its arms were outstretched and its mouth was open as if it wanted to eat her.
Bella cried out in shock and alarm, almost falling backwards away from it. Quickly, she steadied herself and readied her wand, pointing it at the inferi.
A green beam of light blasted Inferi. This did not phase it.
Bella blinked in surprise and confusion. She glanced over at Voldemort, wordlessly requesting an answer as to why the Killing Curse had not killed the reanimated corpse.
Voldemort just watched, silently, a hint of the earlier smirk remaining.
Bella had to look away from him when Inferi lunged at her again, pushing her to the muddy ground. Another blast of light pushed Inferi off of Bella and into a row of tall cornstalks, knocking them over.
Bella rose and the Inferi rose, both shorter than the tall grass and cornstalks around them.
As Bella readied herself and her wand for the next Inferi attack, Voldemort wondered how long it would take her to realize how to defeat the inferi.
Inferi sprinted away from the fallen stalks towards Bella, who shot what was probably ever hex and curse she knew at it. Though these spells damaged Inferi's body, they did not deter it from attacking. Despite superficial cuts and even deeper wounds, Inferi kept rushing towards Bella.
She jumped out of the way to avoid it. It turned and started towards her again.
"What do I do?!" Bella screamed, clearly getting nervous now.
"I thought you said this would be easy for you, Bella." Voldemort taunted.
He was not going to just give her the answer. She had to learn it for herself. (Plus, he was still annoyed by her earlier complaining tone of voice.)
Bella turned to glare at him, momentarily, before looking back at Inferi who was inches from her now. She raised her wand but it was too late. Inferi tackled her to the ground, jaw snapping and hands grabbing at her frightened face.
With her free hand and her wand hand, Bella pushed Inferi with all her strength to keep its teeth from biting her and its disproportional strength from crushing her. She glanced over at Voldemort again, this time pleadingly.
"My lord, please!" Bella called, "Get it off me!"
Now. There was some respect—though only desperation induced.
Voldemort let Bella struggle with the inferi for a few more minutes before he finally waved his wand. Immediately, Inferi let go of Bella, stood up and stood still, weak and docile again.
Slowly and cautiously, Bella stood up, too. As she did, her dark eyes watched the inferi, waiting for it to jump and attack her again. It did not move.
"Thank you." Bella said, after she was sure the inferi (and Voldemort) was not trying to trick her. She turned to face Voldemort, asking "How do you destroy it?"
"You can't figure it out?" He tested.
Bella was impulsive and imbalanced but not stupid. Even if she had no prior knowledge of inferi, and no hypotheses of how to beat them, she should have been able to come to the correct conclusion simply process of elimination.
She had tried all sorts of spells on the inferi already. Except fire. She should have thought of that by now.
Bella's dark eyes squinted into Voldemort's red ones. He realized she was attempting to look into his mind. Attempting and failing.
"Legilimency is cheating, Bella." Voldemort chided.
Bella groaned in defeat but then smiled, "Don't you want me to fight dirty? We're going to have a war, after all. Don't you want me to do whatever it takes to win?"
Voldemort appreciated the sentiment but knew Bella was only saying that to distract from the fact that she was not able to figure out how to destroy the reanimated muggle corpse.
"I want you to do whatever it takes to defeat the inferi." Voldemort returned. "And we'll stay out here as long as it takes for you to figure out how to."
Bella grimaced. She watched Voldemort wave his wand and Inferi spring into attack again.
The students who had lost their duels were given the remainder of the day to rest. The students who had won were given only an hour.
The midday sun peaked out from behind the gray clouds in the sky as the five young men lined up, single file, on the grass of the Black Manor back lawn again. Their stomachs growled—the five losers were inside eating lunch while they were forced to be out here, hungry and tired, like they were being punished for winning.
Ingvar Karkaroff strode back and forth in front of the line.
"Congratulations, you five boys won the first round." He addressed, "But now, we must determine the final winners."
Rodolphus looked at Karkaroff, then at the other students in line with him. Igor Karkaroff, Regulus and Sirius Black, Lucius Malfoy. He furrowed his forehead.
"There aren't enough of us for a second round." Rod said.
Karkaroff stopped his back and forth stride directly in front of Rod. "Yes there are. One of you will duel me. Any volunteers?"
Rod's green eyes immediately stared down at the green grass beneath his shoes.
He had no desire to fight this military-esque professor from Durmstrang and knew that if he did it would probably a painful and embarrassing experience, similar to when he had been made foolish enough by jealously and by Bella to challenge Lord Voldemort.
In his peripheral vision, Rod saw that none of the others in gray uniforms, nor Igor in black like his father, had yet volunteered to fight their professor, either.
"You are all cowards." Karkaroff growled, "The Dark Lord will be disappointed in all of you."
Rod had to stop himself from snorting at that. Why should he care if the so-called Dark Lord was disappointed in him? The two men already did not like or trust each other.
And why would anyone care? As far as the students learning the Dark Arts this summer, and their parents, knew Lord Voldemort was just a halfblood who had made vague promises of Pureblood Supremacy without any specific proof of how he would deliver them.
Abraxas Malfoy was the reason they were all here. He had been the one to approve the camp and encourage pureblood parents to send their pureblood sons. Disappointing him might threaten these students—if they understood the power that Abraxas Malfoy's money and connections had over their parents.
But disappointing the 'Dark Lord'? No. Nobody would care. Would they?
A hand shot up towards the gray sky. Rod and the other three students stared in shock, looking over to see Regulus Black raising his hand.
"I'll do it." Regulus declared.
Ingvar Karkaroff smiled, just a little.
This surprised Rod. He had never seen the professor smile before (though it had only been two days). He eyed Igor Karkaroff. From the surprised look on Igor's goateed face, Rod wondered if the boy had ever seen his father smile before, either.
"Good boy." Karkaroff said, "I will tell the Dark Lord that you were the only one brave enough to volunteer."
Now Regulus was smiling, both proudly and nervously.
He glanced over at the other students for signs of approval or jealously. Igor was wide-eyed, shaking his head in a warning to Regulus. Regulus' smile fell but it was too late to rescind his offer to fight.
Rod wondered what had motivated Regulus to volunteer. Did Regulus really want to earn the favor of a man he had probably never even had a conversation with?
Or was there another reason? Did Regulus want to impress someone else, like his brother Sirius standing beside him…or his older cousin Bella?
Probably Bella, Rod thought. She and Regulus had always been close. Regulus had been the ringboy at Bellatrix and Rodolphus' wedding seven years ago, though that was back when Regulus was only seven or eight years old.
"The rest of you," Ingvar Karkaroff continued, "choose your opponents."
The four remaining students glanced at each other from where they stood in line beside one another. Sirius and Igor shrugged, turning towards each other.
Rod turned to Lucius Malfoy, who he was sure he could defeat because he had done it before when they were at Hogwarts. Their fathers had once been best friends but were now enemies. And most importantly, Lucius had recently injured Rod's brother Rabastan earlier than day. It was time for revenge.
Lucius' silver eyes widened, slightly, as he realized Rod's intentions and that Rod was not weak like Bas.
"Let's be civil about this, Rodolphus." Lucius said.
"Of course." Rod smiled, raising his wand.
Professor Karkaroff was not obviously fighting with his full abilities and even so Regulus regretted agreeing to duel him before he had even cast the first spell.
Regulus had thought that volunteering to fight would impress Professor Karkaroff, the Dark Lord and most importantly Bella, who might finally see him as a man instead of her baby cousin. But what Regulus had not considered was that losing the fight would make him look weak and stupid.
He was considering that now.
A stabbing spell blasted from Professor Karkaroff's wand towards him. He jumped out of its way, losing his balance and tumbling down onto the grass—no he had not lost his balance, it had been a tripping spell that had tripped.
Regulus crashed into Rodolphus as he fell, causing Rodolphus to fall, too. Landing on the grass, they both quickly scrambled to their feet, pushing each other out of the way.
"Watch it, kid." Rodolphus warned, green eyes glaring.
"You watch it." Regulus retorted, dark eyes glaring back.
The young man and the teenager turned their wands towards each other. This allowed both their opponents to strike them with hexes while they were distracted.
Regulus and Rodolphus cried out in shock and pain as they were sliced both with the cutting spell skera by Professor Karkaroff and Lucius Malfoy, respectively. Regulus grabbed his wand arm with his free hand, Rodolphus grabbed his side. Blood stained both their gray uniforms.
They spun away from each other to face their attackers.
"Do not let yourself get distracted." Professor Karkaroff told Regulus. He flicked his wand, another spell shooting towards Regulus.
Regulus blinked in surprise when the spell healed his wound rather than caused more damage.
Igor Karkaroff blinked in surprise, too, when he noticed this. Enough surprise to lower his wand as he fought Sirius Black, and turn to gape at his father healing a student.
This allowed Sirius to blast a spell at Igor, knocking him down while he was distracted. Igor shouted as he fell forward, smacking the grassy ground face first.
Professor Karkaroff scowled. "Pathetic! You let yourself get distracted! Get back up, boy!"
Igor continued to lay on the lawn face down. Regulus could not tell whether Igor was unable or unwilling to face his disappointed father, or both.
Sirius lowered his wand, gray eyes widening in regret. He rushed to Igor's side, bending down next to the older boy, who glanced up at him gratefully.
"Do not help him." Professor Karkaroff warned.
"Why are you being so hard on him?" Sirius demanded, "He's your own son!"
"He is a student." Professor Karkaroff declared, "I will not treat him any differently than the rest of you—"
"You're treating him worse!" Sirius interrupted to exclaim.
He reached to put a hand on the back of Igor's shoulder, despite the order not to aid him. A beam of light from Professor Karkaroff's wand instantly struck both Sirius' hand and Igor's shoulder. Both boys yelped.
Sirius was glaring at Professor Karkaroff now as he rose, wand rising as well. He pointed it at the angry teacher.
As soon as he did, though, his wand was knocked out of his hand by a disarming spell from Professor Karkaroff. His wand soared through the air and landed in the rushing water of the stone bird fountain with a splash. Sirius glanced over at it before continuing to glare at Karkaroff.
"I do not tolerate disrespect." Karkaroff declared, wand still raised, "It must be punished." But instead of another spell, he turned to look at Regulus again, "You," he said, "you will teach your fellow student a lesson."
Regulus gasped. "No, sir! I can't! He's my brother!"
"That is why it has to be you." Professor Karkaroff insisted, "There can be no favoritism. No familial loyalties. You are all soldiers. He is no more your brother than any of these other boys."
He gestured at Rodolphus and Lucius, who had stopped fighting in order to watch the scene occurring.
Regulus shook his head of dark hair. "I can't, professor, I can't. I'm sorry—"
"Just do it, Reg." Sirius said, looking his younger brother in the eyes.
Everyone stared at Regulus for a long, silent and tense moment.
Unable to hold eye-contact with his older brother he stared down at his shoes. Finally, he sighed.
"…fine." He said, almost in a whisper. He lifted his wand, aiming it at Sirius.
Voldemort had assumed the backyard of the Black Manor would be empty again that evening, like it had the evening before. Everyone else, except for him, Bella and the inferi, was inside eating dinner.
Yes. It had taken until dinnertime for Bella to figure out that fire was the only way to defeat an inferi. Hours. The sun was starting to set now, the sky turning dark.
Had Bella really been one of Professor Slughorn's best students? Voldemort wondered. Or had Slughorn just recommended a student he would not miss if she died trying to figure out how to stop an inferi from killing her.
Bella was trudging a little bit behind Voldemort's quicker pace, exhausted from a day of fighting the inferi. Her black dress was stained with mud and burn marks, and her black hair was a mess. Yet, between tired exhales and inhales, she was smiling in satisfaction at finally figuring it out.
Bella looked better than the muggle inferi, though. Inferi's once human skin was charred black. This particular one would probably never turn gray, but now it was already featureless, its face burned beyond recognition and all its hair gone.
It was trudging, too, directed by Voldemort's wand.
The three cut across the grass, instead of using the cobblestone path, finding the restored shed between the fountain and the newly-made guesthouse.
Huffing, Bella jogged ahead to open its wooden door. As soon as she did, she, Voldemort and the muggle inferi found not an empty shed but a pale, dark-haired teenager sitting alone in dark.
He glanced up at them in surprise and confusion. There was a hint of tears in his dark eyes. He quickly looked down at his knees, pulled up to his chest, to hide his face from her.
"…Reggie…" Bella identified, "What's wrong?"
"He made me hurt him." The boy mumbled into his knees, not looking up at her, "Professor Karkaroff made me punish my brother."
Bella paused. She glanced back at Voldemort standing behind her, the burned inferi idling beside him. The boy had not yet noticed that the two others were there, thinking it was only Bella.
Voldemort gave her a look with his red eyes that told her to hurry up. If Bella wanted to have a heartfelt conversation with the boy, she would have to do it somewhere else—preferably far away from him.
Bella nodded, then turned back to the boy. "I'm sure Gryffindor deserved it."
This did not comfort the boy. But it did make him look at her again, dark and teary glaring.
Now he noticed that Bella was not the only one in the open doorway to the restored shed. Quickly, he wiped his eyes and jumped up from the dirt floor.
The boy looked at Bella, then at Voldemort, but his wide eyes gaped at the burned muggle inferi. "What is that thing?!" He slowly backed away from it, deeper into the small wooden shed.
"This is an inferi, Reggie." Bella declared, matter-of-factly.
"A what?" the boy sputtered.
"A reanimated corpse." Bella explained, "The only way to defeat them is with fire. Which I did."
The boy nodded, slowly, in dubious acceptance. He managed to look away from the zombie-like creature, back over at Voldemort.
"You're him." The boy identified, "You're the Dark Lord." There was fear in his tone of voice, but also respect.
Voldemort almost smiled at this. Finally, someone else other than Bella was showing him the proper reverence, and this respect was not tinged with sexual desire like hers was.
Bella spoke before Voldemort was even able to open his mouth.
"My lord, this is my youngest cousin, Regulus Arcturus Black." she told him, then turning to the boy, "Reggie, this is the Dark Lord Voldemort."
The boy, apparently named Regulus, stepped forward eagerly, "It is an honor to meet you." he closed his eyes for a moment, as if trying to remember practiced words, "My parents and their friends have been complaining for years but you're the first person to actually stand up and do something. I really admire that and feel privileged to be a part of it."
Voldemort actually did smile at this.
He now remembered why children made the best soldiers. He may never get the full obedience and respect of his former classmates, but their children…their children would obey and respect him, without question and ulterior motive, like their parents had.
Voldemort had not wanted to teach anyone but Bella this summer, recalling how difficult teenagers were from his years as professor at Durmstrang, but now he was starting to reconsider. There were a few rebels at Durmstrang (who usually were punished into compliance or, in rarer cases, expelled) but most students simply respected teachers because they were teachers.
"Good." Voldemort said, "Put that enthusiasm towards becoming an effective soldier."
Regulus nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, sir, my lord, I will, sir." This time his words rushed out all once, unprepared.
Bella snickered behind a hand she covered her mouth with. She lowered her hand, then used it to wave Regulus away, "Run along Reggie, you're dinner's getting cold."
Regulus nodded quickly at her. She stepped aside from the doorway, to allow him to hurry out of the shed past her, Voldemort, and the inferi.
Bella and Voldemort turned to watch him jog up the grassy hill towards the Black Manor. When he was gone, they locked the burned muggle inferi in the shed.
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