"You don't want anything besides the salad?" Voldemort asked, watching as Bellatrix poked her fork at her prawns on greens. She shook her head and said,
"I'm entirely too nervous to be eating anything but little shrimps and leaves, My Lord."
"Well, I'm nervous too; that's why I'm eating so much." He sawed into his lamb chop with mint gremolata and stuffed a bite into his mouth. He swigged from his rich red Bordeaux, and Bellatrix pursed her lips.
"D'you suppose Narcissa's doing all right?" she asked quietly, and Voldemort took another bite of lamb before he said,
"I think Tippy is probably spoiling her rotten. She's probably sitting in the conservatory as we speak, being waited on hand and foot by a very anxious little Tippy, who's probably bringing her warm milk and fresh biscuits."
Bellatrix smiled just a little and nodded, picking up a prawn and eating it more readily.
"I hope that's true."
"She will be safer if the Healers perform a Magical Section birth," Voldemort said a little uncomfortably, "since she is so young."
"Magical Section?" Bellatrix asked, and Voldemort clarified,
"If they very carefully cut the child from her… and heal her up, of course. But it is safer for a very young witch. She'll be sedated. There's no pain. They'll take the baby before she wakes so she doesn't have to see or hear it."
Bellatrix's face blanched, and she whispered sadly,
"I wish so badly for her that she did not have to endure any of this. And, yet, I know it was her mistake that brought this upon her. Avery and his new wife will care well for the child, I hope."
"Avery has given me every assurance that the child will be raised as if it were his own blood," Voldemort said very firmly. But Bellatrix fretted,
"What if it gets nearer the end and Narcissa wants to keep the child?"
"Keep the child?" Voldemort scoffed. "She's fourteen. When she delivers the baby - which should be as early as the Healers deem safe - she will rest at home and then return to her education. She will become a Death Eater at seventeen. She will finish school. Then, and only then, will she marry Lucius Malfoy if she wishes, and they may have right born children to keep. She may not keep this child; she is fourteen. I will not allow it."
"Yes, Master." Bellatrix bowed her head and poked at her salad again, and Voldemort scowled at her.
"Avery and his wife Nadine are going to raise the child."
"Yes. I know," Bellatrix said, almost roughly. Voldemort threw his hands up and demanded,
"What is the problem, Bellatrix?"
"She'll miss the baby," Bellatrix said sadly. "She's already told me about it. She's already said it will be the most difficult thing in all the world to -"
"You are not about to suggest what I think you are," Voldemort said, warning in his voice and a pit in his stomach.
"We could raise the child," Bellatrix blurted. Voldemort shook his head.
"No. We could not. You and I both despise children, and we are entirely too -"
"I can't be pregnant because I'm a soldier," Bellatrix conceded, "but we have Tippy to care for the baby whilst we're off working. And I spend much of my time - most of my time - at Marsham House. Narcissa could still visit. I could care for the child when I'm not in battle."
"You don't want to do that," Voldemort snapped, and Bellatrix murmured,
"I think I do."
"You want to raise the child of your fourteen-year-old sister and her little boyfriend?" Voldemort demanded, and the people at the next table over looked rather intrigued by the conversation. Voldemort felt his nostrils flare, and he shook his head. "Avery and his new wife Nadine are going to raise the child. We will speak no more on this. I will hear no more of this. This is absolutely ridiculous that you should even bring this up to me. Ludicrous."
"Please, Master. I'm sorry." Bellatrix sighed, and then she raised her eyes and froze. Voldemort frowned a little and shrugged.
"What's wrong?"
Bellatrix stared down at her salad and whispered, "He's just walked in."
"What? Who?" snapped Voldemort, and as he whirled over his shoulder, Bellatrix snapped at him,
"No! Don't look… ah!"
Voldemort's eyes went wide with wonder then. He stared as Albus Dumbledore was shown to a table, as he sat down in his strange-looking, dark purple Muggle-style suit. He gratefully accepted a menu from a Muggle waiter, and he quickly placed an order. Then he met Voldemort's eyes, and Voldemort turned back to Bellatrix, panting a little.
"He suspects something," Bellatrix hissed, and Voldemort nodded just a little. He stuffed three quick bites of lamb with mint into his mouth and then he swigged down red wine, and he whispered,
"We need to get out of here. Let's pay and leave."
"Pardon me."
Voldemort raised his eyes to see Albus Dumbledore pulling out a chair at the four-top table where he and Bellatrix were sitting. Voldemort gulped and shrugged, pretending not to understand, pretending not to know, not to recognise. Dumbledore smirked a little and sat, and he said gently,
"I can not help but think that I know you two from somewhere. Old acquaintances, perhaps. Long lost friends? I am Albus Dumbledore. Do you know me?"
"Désolée, mais nous ne parlons pas anglais," said Bellatrix quickly, but Voldemort shut his eyes and shook his head. Was she a complete idiot? When he opened his eyes, he saw solemn recognition wash over Dumbledore's aged face. Dumbledore nodded and said,
"Bellatrix. I can hear your voice even through the disguise, even through the language. And that means… Tom."
He turned to Voldemort, who shook his head and shrugged again, but it was useless now. Dumbledore knew them. Dumbledore recognised them. Voldemort chomped his lip, and Dumbledore said softly,
"You used to chew your lip like that, Tom, when you were a boy at Hogwarts and I suspected you of something. You'd put your teeth to your lip and insist you'd not done anything wrong. It's a peculiar tic of yours that you've retained through the decades. Though I confess, that scar is striking on you."
Voldemort still said nothing. Dumbledore folded his hands on the table and said gently, almost condescendingly,
"You have come here to kill me. I knew you would do so. But it can not be in this restaurant, Tom. You see, whilst to you these Muggles' lives have no meaning, to me they are innocents and valuable, all of them. So we will take our disagreement elsewhere, you and I."
"You're right," Voldemort said, and he reached into his suit jacket to pull out his wand. "They have no meaning to me. Av-"
"Stupefy!" shouted Dumbledore, flying to his feet. He shot out the spell from the palm of his hand, but Voldemort cut off his Killing Curse and immediately put up a Shield Charm around himself. The Stunning Spell blasted off the Shield Charm, bursting in blue sparks and lighting a few tablecloths on fire. People began to scream, and the fires gave Voldemort an idea. He could easily clear this restaurant out and kill Dumbledore in the process.
He circled his wand through the air above his head and summoned all the power he could, knowing he'd need it to control the Fiendfyre he was Conjuring. He snapped his wand forward as Muggles shrieked and dashed for the restaurant door, and he cried out,
"IGNIS INIMICUM MAXIMA!"
A conflagration, a veritable holocaust of hellfire exploded forth from Voldemort's wand and snaked through the restaurant, consuming the wood paneling and the tables, the tablecloths… the Muggles. There were screams. People were running. People were being eaten alive by the flames. They were dying. And so Dumbledore responded as Dumbledore was wont to do.
He tried to save the Muggles.
He began casting spells to try and rescue the burning figures, to try and extinguish the flames upon, them, to begin healing. Dumbledore's face twisted in fear and horror as Voldemort whipped the fire through the restaurant, and Dumbledore screamed,
"Stop this madness, Tom!"
"AVADA KEDAVRA!"
Voldemort snapped his wand down, his Fiendfyre dying in an instant as he stared at Albus Dumbledore. Bellatrix, his beautiful young wife, stood behind Dumbledore with her wand pressed to his back. Her face was sweaty from the heat of the flames that were devouring the restaurant, but she'd had the presence of mind to murder Dumbledore.
Dumbledore's half moon spectacles slipped down his nose a little, falling awkwardly as his face tipped strangely. His gaze went wide and round, and he whispered a word that Voldemort couldn't hear over the shrieking horror he'd unleashed with his Fiendfyre. Dumbledore collapsed down onto the ground in a pile as the jade green flash of Bellatrix's Killing Curse faded from Voldemort's vision.
"My Lord!"
Voldemort stared down at Dumbledore, who was dead. Dead. Albus Dumbledore was dead. A chandelier crashed to the ground behind Voldemort with a rickety clatter.
"My Lord!"
Bellatrix bent down and rifled in Dumbledore's jacket, pulling out his wand. She held it in her left hand and aimed her own wand at him.
"Corpus Evanesco!"
Dumbledore was gone. Dead. Gone. Someone ran by on fire.
"We have to go, Master!"
Voldemort snapped to rights, and he stared at Bellatrix, who was sweating and glowing in the orange heat of the flames. She coughed loudly, shaking her head. The smoke was getting so thick. The smoke was paste in his lungs now, and as he reached for Bellatrix's shoulders, he insisted,
"You are the best soldier I could ever have. Ever."
"We need to go!" Bellatrix screamed. She squeezed Voldemort's hand and Disapparated, and when they came to, they were inside the chilly, quiet hotel room where they were staying.
Dumbledore was dead. Vanished.
Bellatrix studied his wand as she sat on the edge of the white bed, soiling it with ash and soot, and she looked up at Voldemort.
"We need to pack and go home," he told her, and she whispered,
"We need an antidote for the Mutuorecognis Potion."
"I haven't got one," he said. "We'll have to wait for it to wear off. But no one will know that it was us. No one will have recognised us. Still. We need to go home."
"He's dead," Bellatrix mumbled, and Voldemort walked over to her, holding her face and leaning down to kiss her hard. He tasted fire on her, and suddenly he found himself whispering,
"I'll give you whatever life you want, Bellatrix; you are everything. You've killed him. You brave creature. You beautiful soldier. I adore you."
"And I adore you, Master," Bellatrix said, touching at his chest with a wand in each of her hands. "Let's go home."
Author's Note: WELL! That was… probably not what you were expecting. :} I'd love to know your thoughts.